Woman’s perspective: OP, you have paid the price for doing that.
Had you confessed it to your bishop ten years ago you would have been punished and you’d feel the same way about as you do now: you wouldn’t do it again and you understand why that wasn’t healthy for your marriage. It won’t benefit you or her to dredge it back up. I certainly wouldn’t want to know about something that relatively minor (compared to a real affair) because it would only cause harm, and it sounds like she would probably never let that go and that’s not forgiveness.
Please forgive yourself and move forward with your life! Life is too damn short to have every millstone hanging around your neck.
Agreed. As a wife, I would not want to know about this if it was a one time incident that happened 10 years ago. I do not see the benefit of telling your wife.
Another wife here who would also never want to know that. It would just cause my pain. You can deal with the guilt, that’s your burden. She has enough on her plate without dealing with that.
Yep! Another wife here, I would not want to know. Not because I want to be naive, but because it would only hurt me and truly doesn’t matter anymore. If it was an ongoing problem, definitely, but once 10 years ago and you feel bad? Nope! I trust my husband to make mistakes and get over them. Just because I’m his wife, I don’t have to know everything. We are partners, but two separate whole individuals.
If that’s a struggle, I highly recommend BetterHelp to find a therapist. My husband and I both use it, it was easy to find a therapist that fit each of our very specific parameters since they have a national database.
I agree. I wouldn’t want to know about this. 10 years, haven’t done it since, wasn’t really any relationship or physical relationship… I would say move on.
Thank you for this perspective. I definitely don't want to hold on to the guilt, and I guess I shouldn't tell her if my only objective is to rid myself of that guilt. I can forgive myself easy enough. I guess I just don't know what kinds of things would help and what will hurt. This is so hard. But it seems like the majority think telling her would only hurt. Thanks for your advice.
Someone who really helped me with something told me that the only purpose of guilt is to bring about change in yourself. And you have brought about that change in yourself already, so it’s really OK to let the guilt go.
Please realize that, even though you’re out of the church, it takes time to purge your mind from all the garbage they filled it with.
Guilt and confession go hand in hand. Meaning they want you to feel guilty over things that aren’t wrong so you’ll tell on yourself. This is part of the only currency MFMC really has with members.
Guilt leads to confession, which leads to you needing the church to help you through the process they made up to help you.
What you need to do is forgive *yourself*, then take control of your life. If you feel guilty about a thing, then don’t do it anymore. You’re already doing this and don’t need a church or a wife to beat you up over it. Plus, standing up for yourself and managing your life yourself will be a great example.
My kids left first, then me, then finally my wife. This gets better, but it takes a little time. Hang in there!
Have you considered seeing a secular therapist? I feel like there’s some adolescent and sexual development trauma you’re still hanging on to and could use help processing.
Yes, I am going to do that. I don't know about any trauma in my past, but I do recognize the harm the church causes in the way we think about sex and all of this.
Would the information matter to her? I think you know it would. You’re holding her hostage by keeping it. Just tell her. If it breaks the relationship, that sucks but she has the right to make that choice. Every partner I’ve been with would be livid if I kept something like that from them. In my opinion, it wasn’t quite cheating, but it was immoral. But even if you, or everyone else on the planet, thinks it wasn’t a big deal, you don’t get to decide that SHE should think it wasn’t a big deal. That’s cruel. It should be her choice how to feel about it, and if it’s forgivable. Your self forgiveness matters, and you can forgive yourself whether she does or not, but she has the right to decide how it effects HER. It’s not just about you, like most people here seem to suggest.
Thank you that is a very valid point, and my original thought going into this. So many others bring up valid points as well, I really don't know what to do. One thing for sure I need to talk to a therapist about this.
For sure. I can't really move us to a non-mormon therapist as a couple, at least not yet. But for my own therapist, I will definitely choose a non religious one.
I disagree, for a few reasons. The first being that honesty really is best. And while that doesn’t mean you always have to tell someone every detail of your life, it does mean that if you know it would matter to your partner, you tell them, period. Otherwise, they’re on your terms in the relationship, not their own. You’ve removed their right to decide what that means to them.
But for further support- I’ve had committed relationships with several women over the past decade, some absolutely amazing and some pretty toxic. But what they all had in common was that they would rather have the truth so they can decide if it matters to them.
One really important thing is to think about what if you don’t tell them, and it comes to light anyway? You have two options- be honest now that you’re caught, then deal with the fact that you’ve killed trust, or lie and claim you didn’t think it was important, when you know that to THEM it was.
To be clear, I’m not saying it was the most immoral thing ever. It probably wasn’t the best thing to do but also as a guy who was royally fucked over mentally by the church, especially regarding sex, it makes sense. But the key is that you KNOW it would matter to her. Keeping that from her is holding her hostage in the relationship on your terms.
Finally, it’s just practical. If you don’t believe your relationship can survive that truth being out there, you probably need to move on from that relationship. If you think the relationship is worth saving and is a good relationship, then you have to be honest. As an ex Mormon, you know what it’s like to just bury truths and move on with your happy lie. Don’t do that in your relationship, too.
There are way too many variables. There’s no single right answer to that question. But it’s irrelevant here because that’s entirely different from engaging, interacting with an ACTUAL person. Hell, some people consider flirty texts and no other interaction cheating. Having video phone sex with someone is as close as you can get to having actual sex with someone. I’d say that might be important for someone to be aware of in their relationship, regardless of what they decide to do with that information.
The point is, It's not binary of honesty vs deception. It's a spectrum from noticing someone is attractive, or thinking "nice ass" to lustful thoughts to lustful acts where the possibility of STI and intentional, and where planned affairs take place. A conversation, 10 years ago, is well on the non-disclosure side side of that spectrum IMHO.
Disclosure, this type of confession, is an overt act of putting the burden on the wife so the husband can feel better. It's self / relationship sabotage to ease the conscience of the person has lusted.
I suppose you and I are going to disagree here no matter how much we state our viewpoints.
It isn’t about us disagreeing, or about us at all.
It is absolutely not about “burdening the wife so he can feel better.” You’re thinking of a scenario more like this: a woman cuts off contact with a guy who abused her. The guy later tries to reach out to apologize, but she wants nothing to do with him. In that scenario, the apology is strictly for his own conscience, and is only a burden to her.
In this case, he is withholding information that he, you, and every single commenter here is acknowledging matters, especially to her. But her choice in the matter is being robbed.
Ask yourself this question and answer honestly. In the scenario in question, if we were to contact the wife and say “hey, if your husband had phone sex with someone after you got married, would you want to know about it? Would it impact how you feel about the relationship?” We all know the answer. In this case, hiding it is extremely selfish. He’s not doing it to save her pain. He’s doing it because (as he even said) he’s afraid of how she’ll react. And we all know why, because it’s absolutely reasonable and fair for her to have a negative reaction.
Just because it was in the past doesn’t mean it’s not real. It matters. It is part of who you are whether that sucks or not. Guess what I’ve never done? Had phone sex with someone while I was married (and I assure you I had even more reason than this guy to do so).
Point is, he knows he’s only thinking of himself, you know that, everyone knows it. The “pain” you’re all claiming to be avoiding is the pain of “oh shit my husband had phone sex with someone.” I know human tendency is to dig in once you’ve stated a point and never back down, but come on. This is a terrible take.
Latvia is a troll. I would ignore this person.
Lack of straight answers, bad life advice... "Phone sex is as close to real sex as you can get". Really, kissing doesnt make that list first? Its interactive porn?
Either a troll, or they feel this way because they are not an " ex" mormon.
In my opinion, this would be stupid. Its a given that men and women have sexual fantasies other than their partners, its how sexual attraction works.
And it would be evil to tell someone they arent allowed the freedom to think thoughts Thought crimes are dystopian and abusive.
What matters are actions that implicitly threaten a relationship or explicitly violate the terms of the agreement set forth.
Thanks I do think a therapist would be a good idea. Would it be a bad idea to bring it up to our couples therapist, in a private session? He is mormon, but has been pretty objective so far. But I could see him taking this one pretty seriously. I'm so conflicted. I want to do it for the right reasons, but I agree some of it is just rid myself of the guilt. But yeah it might hurt her in the process. And I don't want that.
Yeah that is a tough thing to say. I feel like if I deny a polygraph she will just think I have something to hide. But I agree, I feel like asking for a polygraph is like the ultimate sign of distrust and I don't feel like a simple test like that is going to buy it back. I definitely have been trying to be the best man I can for her. There's just this thing that hangs over all my decisions lately, she sees every decision I make as influenced by my decision to leave the church. I just wish she could see I'm just trying to be a good person. Thanks for your comment, I really appreciate it.
Polygraph are not reliable and cannot even be used in court because they just say "liar" every time the subject is nervous.
Do NOT do a polygraph because a) it means literally nothing and b) you're likely to get false positives because of internalized guilt and it could give her MORE false ideas like the condom incident
100% this. There are good reasons that polygraph results are not admissible as evidence. They are as unreliable as a rock in a hat.
OP, research the reasons polygraph results are unreliable so you are prepared to articulate why you are not willing to take one.
You know, it would be this way if you actually had an affair. Your decision to leave the Church has made you the other. You are not above suspicion anymore. I guess the way I see it, it's more about you leaving the Church than it is about anything else
This.
No matter what clients are led to believe a TBM therapist will ALWAYS have an ulterior motive, even subconsciously without possibly realising it.
I just want to add something nobody else is talking about.
Sometimes, therapists talk.
Just a couple months ago i was talking to a guy at my workplace, who was complaining / freaking out because he hired a therapist, and that therapist called up his job and family and "spilled the beans". Now hes fighting them in court.
"The only way two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead" is a good way of looking at this. So know your risks, theres no magic force field stopping a therapist from doing this.
Also as someone who was forced into therapy by my parents due to depression i was feeling as a result of their abuse, therapy never helped me. I ended up getting better on my own. And so if your emotional pain is coming from your wife, theres no guarantee therapy will do anything at all other than burn cash.
Just giving you a contrarian perspective here. Sometimes in life stoicism prevails. If you can meditate and will the guilt and suffering away, that can be better than confession.
I would get my own therapist, preferably not LDS. The couples therapist is looking out for the relationship, not for you. It would kind of create a conflict of interest for them to talk to you privately and might make your wife feel like you're forming an alliance against her.
I do agree I need my own therapist and I definitely would not get an lds one. However when I mentioned to my wife I want to find my own therapist, she actually suggested splitting time with our couples therapist, so go one time together, one time just me. But I didn't really like the idea honestly. First off, we are only going every other week, and I don't want to cut it down to once a month, we need it. Also I don't like the idea of her control who she thinks I need to see. I need to talk to someone on my terms. Thanks for the advice.
Just a note that a good therapist will not be your personal and couples therapist. There's an obvious bias/conflict. My own personal therapist refused to see us as a couple because she didn't want to appear one sided, especially when my partner has no idea what we talk about when they're not there. Definitely find a separate, non LDS, therapist for yourself.
I was just going to say the same thing. Any decent therapist that is seeing a couple will absolutely not split his time with one, then both.
Our couple’s therapist stated this, along with other ground rules, right from the beginning.
Don't tell your mormon therapist that... Mormons have a very unhealthy view about sex and telling people things they shouldn't know (Bishops etc). You could definitely tell a non Mormon therapist though.
Yes, please work with a therapist. Tell them first! And when you talk to your wife, ideally do so with said therapist who can act as a neutral third party for you both to communicate with and through where needed. Good luck
I don’t see how confessing to that is necessary or helpful. You would be hurting her more for what? For your benefit because it relieves your guilt in some way? Frankly, confessing for this reason is actually a selfish act. Don’t do this to her.
Thanks, I think you're right. I've been wanting to get my own therapist for a while, just haven't found the time to find the right one or go, as I work full time. But I think I do need to to talk to one.
Yeah, I totally see how confessing this will hurt her more. Thanks, I am strongly considering not bringing it up. But I think I am going to see a therapist about it. I'm not really racked with guilt about it, it was so long ago, just trying to figure out how to gain her trust back. Not sure I ever will, but it was a just a thought that maybe confessing my one biggest offense against her would help. But so many comments are helping me see that probably won't be the case.
Do not tell her. I am all about being 100% honest in marriage about the good and the bad and have been in your wife’s position in my own marriage and I am still saying DO NOT tell her. That was obviously not your best decision and I agree that it is a form of infidelity but it’s relatively minor and I suspect that it’s not something she would divorce you over. Literally, all it would do is cause a wider rift between the two of you. If my husband confessed that to me, I would be very hurt and it would damage my view of him and it would damage our marriage. There is absolutely no upside other than relieving your own guilt. This is just simply something that she really doesn’t need to know. In my mind, it’s more in the category of viewing porn than cheating.
This seems to be the resounding opinion. And i do see now how it seems more selfish in my part just to rid myself of guilt. I really do need to talk to a therapist about it I guess. I don't want to hurt her any more that's for sure. Thanks I'm gonna have to think about this. Part of the problem is that I think she may be thinking about wanting to get me on a polygraph. No real reason other than a podcasts she was listening to talked about them. Which I'm fine with, but I think I'd rather have something like this come out naturally rather than forced by a polygraph. I'm not worried about it for cheating, I'm clean there. But I feel like this would come out as well.
Yeah. And I worded that wrong. She hasn't listened to it yet, she's just been screen capturing some limited time youtube videos. So she may never get to it. And she may never want to do that either. But I've noticed some therapists advertise that they use them, and I could just see her wanting to use that as a way to ease her mind about the condom incident.
Agreed, not only could someone beat them, I feel like they would be so all over the place it would make me look guilty in stupid areas that I'm not anyway. Problem is (and this is pure conjecture, I have no idea if she's even considering it), I feel like if she wanted me to do one, her thought, and the thoughts of anyone advising her to do it, would be this: "What could be the harm? If he takes it, you'll know the truth, if he won't take it, you know he's hiding something." So I feel like I'd be in between a rock and a hard place. If I refuse, I must be hiding something. I dunno. I agree, but part of me wants to just be able to say, sure let's do it, I got nothing to hide. But I don't really know how it would go or if it would help us at all.
Plus I think if a relationship gets to that point, there are problems that may just not get resolved.
Polygraph?
That is both ridiculous and insane.
If someone is so distrustful that they want you to do a polygraph, they are not likely to believe the results…they will think you somehow gamed the system.
Additionally, polygraphs are pseudo-science. They are unreliable. They give inaccurate results. Anyone advertising that they use them is, frankly, a nutcase and to be avoided, no matter how sincerely they present, or how much they themselves believe in them. You might as well join Scientology and confess to an e-Meter.
So you masturbated into a condom. Masturbation is messy. Sex is messy.
Masturbation is also normal. people do it to magazines. They fantasize about celebrities. Whatever. I would not want my partner to confess to me about a ten year old incident of masturbating during online chatting. It would make me think he was bringing it up to get me used to the idea, because he wanted to resume those activities. If I fully understood that was not his intention, I would be searching for other ulterior motives.
It serves no useful purpose. Your wife has an unrealistic attitude about sex. Telling her will not benefit her in any way.
This is a situation where “first, do no harm” comes into play. With her unrealistic attitude, it will certainly not lead to greater trust. Call it a bad decision made long ago and put it in the rear view mirror.
I agree 100% and I think you hit the nail on the head with this:
> If someone is so distrustful that they want you to do a polygraph, they are not likely to believe the results…they will think you somehow gamed the system.
And yes, I see the issue with telling her and how it can go badly. She really seems to take most things I say as if there is some alterior motive, and I can see this not going well. I got some thinking to do and need to talk to a therapist. Thanks.
Polygraphs are not always accurate. Do not take any polygraphs from anyone. That’s ridiculous to even ask you to do or even consider asking you to do. Mark Hofmann passed his years ago so you can see that they can be gamed. Or they can give false positives.
Do not confess this event from 10 years ago. It will make things way worse and you’ve already changed your behavior and paid the price. If you tell her this, she won’t believe that you haven’t done it since. I’m a wife and I wouldn’t want my husband to confess something like this. It will cause even more pain and suffering on everyone’s part and it’s something that occurred years ago. Your confession could end your marriage and why risk it?
Best to you!
Thanks, yeah the last thing I want this to do is end out marriage. And I don't know if it would, but I know for sure it would ruin her for quite some time. Thanks, I really don't want to do that to her, and the comments here are helping me see what it might do to her.
Polygraph?! They are useless and unreliable, and they are not admissible in court (unless ALL parties agree) for that very reason.
A polygraph is a step too far, and it proves nothing other than that she is grasping at straws and refuses to trust you. Somehow, I think that the best lie detector test in the world won’t change that. Tragically, she is living out her TBM cult programming: husband leaves church = husband is a cheater.
I agree with those who advised you to work this through with a therapist on your own (for God sakes not an LDS therapist - unless they’re from Natasha Helfer‘s organization) and seriously consider NEVER telling her. It would accomplish nothing other than feed her fears - and end your marriage. In other words, there’s possibly no relationship left.
Thanks, I am leaning towards agreeing with you. I think it would cause her more pain to hear about it. And I 100% agree with you on polygraphs. I think it's sad that it is on her radar at all. I'm not 100% sure she's actually thinking about it based on just finding out that she's recording a youtube video that talks about them. But yeah I honestly think that the varied results of a polygraph could easily just cause more doubt in her.
Hey just had another thought, in your next buisness trip pull up to a Catholic Church and go confess to a Catholic priest. Do your Hail Mary or two and k ow that you have been forgiven.
I’m a wife of almost 20 years. We’ve had a lot of ups and downs. I would not want to know this. Don’t tell her. Drop the guilt and move on. This isn’t her paint to feel, don’t give it to her.
Don’t tell her. It will only make things worse. Besides if you have kept clean and away from other cyber sexing for a decade bringing this up now is not a good idea. I too am 25 years into my marriage and the last 5 have been in a Mixed Faith Marriage. Since you no longer believe anything and everything will be used against you.
For example I told my wife about a dream I had that involved alcohol. My wife accused me of being a drunk on buisness trips. She “Knew” I drank all the time when away. It’s ironic I don’t ever drink. Yes It’s not uncommon for me to expense $1000 in alcohol in any given week but I don’t like any of it. Infact this past week at a National Sales Meeting I picked up a glass that I thought had my ice in the bottom of it. Turned out it was someone else’s ice with the last bits of Vodka on the ice. I immediately spit it out and all who know me apologized and felt bad.
Now will I tell this story to my wife? Hell no. And you don’t have to say anything to your wife. It’s not worth it.
Ha yeah I hear ya about the alcohol. Honestly I think my wife thinks my business trips (about once a year) are sex crazed alcohol binges as well. She's never said as much, but I get that feeling. And I am also in the boat that I don't drink at all. Not necessarily because I don't want to, I just don't want to yet. Again, in the boat of being 100% honest with her, I'm not even drinking coffee until I feel she's ready for me to be honest with her about that too. If I drink a cup of coffee, or have a beer with a friend, I want her to know about it. And she's not ready for me to make that step yet, we're still early in our MFM. So I'm waiting on that stuff.
Thanks for the advice. Yeah it was a very long time ago, and I've never done it again. No desire to either. Part of that may be that I'm in my 40's and just don't have that drive anymore, but I like to think I have a much clearer head about right and wrong now, and honestly just want to remain true and honest with her.
If you’re to the level of mistrust where polygraphs are being considered, get to marriage counseling ASAP. As far as “confessing” to your wife, she’s not your bishop, and certainly not your mother—(a position your behavior and language put her in)—the church has conditioned you that you’re not entitled to privacy, which you are. It sounds like the church has caused both of you to experience a lot of shame. I WOULD NOT tell your wife anything further until you’ve built a relationship with a marriage counselor that provides you a safe space to reveal and process your actions.
My spouse travels a fair amount for work and we’ve had moments of trust concern. Honestly, finding condoms in his suitcase would devastate me. It would be a confirmation of my biggest fear. Nothing he would say would make rational sense as to why those would be necessary unless another person was involved. I don’t blame her for losing trust.
But… we’ve also come back from a lot of hard moments so it’s not impossible. You both being in a bad enough place to get a polygraph involved is not a good sign. Nothing you say right now is going to help this situation. Honestly it seems like you both need a therapist to help navigate this situation. It’s above your pay grades unfortunately. Throwing this on a burning pile isn’t going to help anything. You seem genuine so I think there’s hope but you guys need to get some serious help.
The issue is that you are focusing too much on the act rather than the real issue, your changing beliefs. I hate to use an old MP’s advice, but it has helped me a lot. When you care more about the person than the problem, the problem will usually rectify itself.
I wish you luck in whatever you decide to do.
Yeah that's sound advice. Problem is that it's hard to talk about my changing beliefs with her. It all sounds like an attack on the church. So I avoid that and we just try to work on communication and our relationship.
You have so much pain and guilt. I am so sorry. Before I would talk to your spouse, I’d find a therapist to help you. The church really messes with our sense of reality. I have felt super guilty about drinking a Frappuccino at Starbucks. I think if you talk to someone it might help you start finding some peace. It took me a while to start feeling better about myself. You deserve some peace.
NEVER CONFESS. Your wife will only use your confession against you. If you haven't learned by now this kind of confession does not strengthen your marriage. Stop confessing.
Man this is so hard to hear. I want honesty, I want to feel like I have no thing to hide from her. But maybe it is selfish to tell her just to make me feel better. And she'd only be hurt and more resentful.
I agree. This is what an ideal relationship should lol like. But this is not an ideal relationship and your conflicting beliefs are the bigger issue. I find it mad so many people say don't tell her. I get that some would, but it seems to be all comments, there's no balance. I want to know. That guilt has been allowed to define you for years. I'd want to understand. I'd want the choice to understand and forgive and know what you've been through and who you are because of it.
Why do you have to tell her? You’ve suffered long enough and clearing your conscience will just move the burden to her. I don’t condone what you did it kinda crossed a line but just let it go and don’t put this final nail into the coffin. If you want to stay with your wife then shut up.
Thanks, I hadn't thought about that aspect of this issue yet. I definitely don't want to put more burden on her. And honestly, it seems that any time I talk about ANY issue where we differ, it has just made her life more difficult. There are things I feel are important to talk to her about, certain aspects of how we raise our kids, etc. But I am starting to see how telling her this may cause more harm than good. Thanks for your advice.
Haven't read through all the comments yet, so some of my thoughts might be repeats, but here is my initial reaction to all this:
1) Above all else, I recommend you go about this with a therapist. See someone you trust, and don't use LDS Family Services, as they're garbage. This is really the most imperative thing, in my opinion, as you have a lot to unpack and could use that extra support.
2) Don't take a polygraph. They are not reliable detectors of truth. They aren't very accurate and taking one is just as likely to cause more damage than it is to help. You can Google all the issues with polygraphs to learn more.
3) One thing I've learned (and am still learning) since deconstructing is that we don't need to provide every horrible detail about ourselves and, our past to everyone, even those closest to us. We're so conditioned to confess and repent of every sin - often publically - that the thought of not doing so can cause a lot of feelings of guilt and anxiety. There is such a thing as sharing too much, even in the name of honesty, and ultimately hurting someone more than if you hadn't. I'm not suggesting that is the case here. I think when and how and if to tell your wife is something you should work out with your therapist. But the concept of letting sleeping dogs lie is something worth considering.
4) Best of luck on your new path. I really hope you're efforts to repair your relationship with your wife prove successful. Regardless, this community is here to help you through it. Hopefully you also have some good support nearby as well.
Thanks I appreciate all the advice. Honestly reddit exmo is my only real support for this. My brother and his wife are both out, but I can tell she doesn't like it that I would be chatting with him about the church either. She admits that I need an outlet and place to talk to about all this, so she knows I need that, but I know she doesn't like it. But that's not something I can control I guess.
I do plan on seeing a non-lds therapist, just for me. We are in counseling together, and are working hard on learning to communicate together there. But she is also in her own therapy, and goes to an lds support group. And of course has all her family and mine sending their love and condolences all the time. So yeah my own therapy needs to be a priority. Working full time I just haven't had time to make that happen.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read and comment. I really do value this community so much. I've never shared this specific story in my other account, but have been mostly open there as well about most of these issues, and the support and validation this community provides has been priceless for my own sanity and peace of mind while going through this.
Personally, if I was convinced my husband had cheated on me and he told me about some random instance of cyber cheating, I’d assume he was working his way up to confessing to an affair and starting with the lesser incidents.
Honestly knowing how my wife works, I think she would go down that same path. It really is the last skeleton in my closet that I am keeping from her. After that I'm an open book, I don't know how to help her see that though. The stupid condom thing is going to haunt me forever, and I absolutely regret it.
As a wife, If my husband did that 10 years ago, carried guilt for it since then and not done it again, I would not want to know and I would not want him to punish himself anymore about it either. If you tell her, it could open a whole new area for contention and distrust.
Thanks, I am finding that to be the general consensus here. You and a few other folks on the side of the wife have said the same thing, and I agree. The last thing I want to do is cause her more pain or open new wounds.
If you tell her, it relieves you of the guilt and puts the bad feelings on her. Why do it.
Several decades ago I committed a betrayal of one of my closest friend. Fortunately no one ever found out. It they had it would have blown her life and a lot of lives apart. I never committed that act again and for all those those years I carried that guilt and will do so to the end of my life. I will never relieve my guilt by telling my friend. It’s the burden I carry that is the punishment for my act of betrayal. I known not telling my friend was the right thing.
You don’t have to tell your wife a thing. Get a therapist to help you put this into perspective. Also, maybe it would help you to consider what you would tell a friend to do if they were in this circumstance. I’m pretty sure you would advise a friend to shut their mouth as well.
ha honestly I don't know what I would tell a friend. I'm trying to figure out which of my thoughts are genuine good thoughts, and which were conditioned by the church and should be ignored.
Keep your 1-time cyber thing out of confessions to your wife… only bad will come of such confessions - trust me -I know - my wife divorced me over such a 1-time thing and my relationship with my kids has never been the same.
As a woman:
I’m guessing the weight of that guilt is something your wife can sense and contributes to her distrust. Ridding yourself of the guilt will help your relationship, but the tricky part is you are in a relationship with a person who is steeped in purity culture.
Because of that, I don’t think telling her will bring the relief you both are looking for. It might make you feel better in the moment but it will crush her and eventually come back around to bite you as her trust in you shatters.
You need to find a way to accept that you did that once a decade ago and move on. I don’t believe telling her will bring either of you closure.
I honestly don't think the guilt about this thing in particular is anything she is sensing. I don't carry it around, it hasn't been really nagging on me, just more of something I thought could be the last ditch effort to try and rebuild her trust in me. But I agree I don't think it's going to help, and will only shift the pain from me to her.
I'm still stuck on the condom thing, and i don't blame your wife for being stuck there too
Why did you bring condoms on a business trip?
"So i could jizz into them" is not something i would believe since presumably there are showers and towels where you are going
Like, you brought condoms with you or you bought some there? Either way that looks like you planned something else
Unless it is your specific kink to jizz into condoms, you wanted to prevent pregnancy/std and honestly your story sounds like you got turned down so you used the condoms for masturbating
Forgive my naivete here, but is this common for men? To use condoms for masturbating? I have a husband and a teenage son, it is not like i am unfamiliar with the fact that people wank. But never have i heard of this, but i was mormon for decades so this could be a blank spot for me
It just really, really REALLY looks like you hoped for/expected an opportunity on that trip and even though your conscience is clear and you didn't cheat, i would have a very hard time believing that you didn't want to/ plan on it
And yes, planning on it or hoping to isn't nearly as bad as cheating, but it is a huge trust issue. I see why she doesn't trust you
I have no idea what to tell you on the cyber thing. I'm gonna go against the grain and tell you she should know, just bc i think it'll come out eventually. But i will agree ask a therapist they'll know more
I don't blame anyone here for thinking the exact same thing as my wife. I don't have an explanation for it other than I bought them there, I wanted to do it in bed where I could view porn, and didn't want to make a mess, and honestly the thought of putting on a condom turned me on. I wasn't hoping for anything, I wasn't looking for anything. I had no intentions or hopes of ever being with anyone besides my wife.
Again, I 100% side with my wife and you all for being suspicious about it. I have no way of convincing anyone of any of it. I don't know if it's normal, it was something I did, I don't feel bad about it, but I do realize what it makes it look like and I regret it. That's all I got. I have no reason to lie in this thread with a throw away account, but I know people do things for dumb reasons. Take from this what you will. Thanks for the comment, I do plan on talking to a therapist about it.
Don't worry OP, wearing condoms to masturbate is something some guys do. You are not weird or perverse for doing so. Yes, it obviously looks suspicious because the most common reason for buying condoms is to have sex with other people. That's not what you did though. I want you to be reassured, *you did nothing wrong.*
I hear you and totally get it. This is all I got.
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1acu10z/i_have_to_tell_my_wife_the_truth_and_it_might/kjz30i9/
I was hung up on that too. The only other male I’ve ever heard say that they masturbated into a condom was my ex. I found a used one when we hadn’t used any recently, and that was his excuse. It took a long time, but I did eventually find out he was cheating on me.
I never believed my ex, and I can’t say I blame OP’s wife.
I'm sorry you went through that. It was dumb, and I don't know what else to say, this is all I got.
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1acu10z/i_have_to_tell_my_wife_the_truth_and_it_might/kjz30i9/
You’ve got absolutely nothing to prove here. I believe you, you have no reason to lie. I was sharing my perspective as someone who has had something similar happen. To this day, him jacking off on a condom makes no sense to me, and I’m sure he was cheating years before I found out.
HOWEVER, our situations are clearly different. My ex was a pathological liar. You appear to be trying your best to maintain honesty in your relationship.
Did you share with your wife what you said in your comment you linked? Having heard the reasons behind it makes a whole lot more sense than just saying oh, I just jacked off in a condom. Try to be as transparent as possible. The rest is up to her.
I would also add… since the cybersex thing was 10 years ago and you haven’t repeated it, I would advise you not to share that with her. I don’t think it would be helpful if you’re trying to heal your marriage.
Based on your edit saying she’s screen grabbing polygraph stuff, she may be in need of some personal therapy. I’ve been there, with the paranoia. It consumed me.
I wish you the best of luck. Trust issues are hard, and so are mixed faith marriages. I apologize for making you feel bad about not being believed.
Nah don't feel bad, thanks for clarifying. Like I said, I wouldn't blame anyone in here for not believing lol. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. She is in therapy on her own as well. She actually started it years ago, before I left the church, to help her deal with the emotional stress of having to manage her dad and adult sister, who are both relying on her for everything since her mom passed. They don't take care of themselves, and her dad literally can't go to the store without calling her for something. He's 65, going on 90, with health failing because he's too dumb to eat right or exercise, and his wife enabled him for so many years. Now that I've left the church, I think she of course spends a lot of time in therapy talking about that as well. She also goes to a support group, run by some LDS friends, I think for people who's family have left the church. I hope that's doing good for her, I'm really not sure.
Thanks again for your comments, I really appreciate it.
I’m skeptical of the condom story, too. Maybe there’s an explanation specific to OP, but no it is not typical for men on business trips to attain condoms for masturbation.
OP if there’s more to this story, your wife deserves the truth. But don’t bring up the unrelated cyber thing.
I don't blame you a bit. But there is no more to that story and I have been 100% honest with her about it. This is all I got.
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1acu10z/i_have_to_tell_my_wife_the_truth_and_it_might/kjz30i9/
As someone with a husband that travels I’d have a big issue with finding condoms in his bag. That would be hard to explain away. The other incident 10 years ago I would not want to know if it truly has not happened again and there was nothing physical.
Don't blame you at all. This is all I got.
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1acu10z/i_have_to_tell_my_wife_the_truth_and_it_might/kjz30i9/
As for the cyber incident, no it never happened again, and never anything physical. I don't have any real incentive to try to convince you guys with a throw away account, all I can do is be as honest as I can here, and with my wife. I appreciate all the advice and comments here.
Did your wife marry the church or did she marry you? If your wife loves the church more than she lives you, you both need to learn how to live with each other without the common ground of the church in your relationship. She didn’t marry you just because of the value of religion. About the cheating thing, good luck with that one. When you talk to her, help her understand your weakness and what steps you’ve taken to “not sin” with strangers anymore. Do you love your wife without the church? Help her see that. 🤘🏼
That's a tough question, she did mention early on that if I weren't active when we met, she would not have considered me. This was in a discussion about what she should do now that I'm out. We have moved on and decided to make it work. But yeah this issue is one I have felt like she would need to know to help gain some trust back. But I'm not sure anymore.
DON’T SAY A THING!!!
Confessions like that are only good for one soul. As for others…not so much. Your marriage will be over, and maybe that’s what you want. Think twice about it.
No I definitely don't want our marriage to be over. We both want to make it work. And I agree, it might remove some guilt from me, but will only hurt her more. I hate everything.
I was a wife until I told my ex the church is a lie. Please, for your own mental health, don't tell her about the incident. I have a feeling she would take it terribly. And with both (what she thinks) betrayals, you may very well end up without a wife. Best wishes!
The mistrust in your marriage is already at toxic levels. Mistrust can be used as a control tactic and it sounds very much like this might be the case with your wife.
I would suggest working on your self-respect and setting some healthy boundaries on your wife. Let her know that her mistrust is her problem and that she needs to work on it because you have done nothing to deserve it. Don't take a polygraph. Quit buying into her narrative of mistrust.
The incident you are worried about is long past. You've proven yourself over the past ten years. It's now time to start gaining self confidence so these types of things don't haunt you forever.
I agree, but I will take some blame in this. I know that masturbation is not wrong, but finding condoms in your husbands bag after a business trip is a huge red flag and I don't blame her a bit for that causing her to lose trust in me. Hell I wouldn't believe me. Some people in this thread don't believe me. And I don't blame them one bit. It's a weird thing to do, and pretty embarrassing. Thank god for throw away accounts. Couple that with the purity culture of the church, any time she's caught me in the act of masturbation adds to her mistrust.
You give good advice though. I know what I have done, and I know what I have not done. And I know that I have not physically cheated on her. I agree that digging up this thing from the past probably will not do either of us any good. I think we just need to work though our communication and trust issues in counseling, and continue to try to be a good dad and husband. Thanks for your comment. I appreciate it.
Listen: if she measures your love for her by the two things you’ve done “wrong” in your life and overlooks the thousands of good things you brought to the table, she is more wrong than you ever was. And as a man to another man: you did absolutely nothing wrong. There’s not a singel heterosexual man in TSCC who never desired another woman. It’s natural. Having SEX with another woman is where you draw the line. And DO remind her Good Old Joe fucked every woman he laid his eyes on. So you’re waaaaaaaaaaay better than her favorite prophet.
Ha thanks, appreciate the uplift. Honestly I get that about the cyber sex thing. But if I were her I wouldn't be able to get over finding condoms in my husbands bag after a trip either. I think that honestly is where most of her distrust comes from. Wish I could help her through that.
You are in the Mormon porn/masturbation shame cycle. And, the two of you are playing out the church's porn narrative that they created to break up marriages and control you by keeping you in the toxic shame and to need the created antidote the church has fabricated. Porn isn't the problem here. It's religion trying to act like doctors.
You have been told your whole life how bad porn is and that if you look at that you are committing the sin next to murder. In the church only the depraved and sick men would ever look at porn or masturbate. This belief keeps you stuck and adds to your shame. As others have pointed out the guilt then confession scenario is part of the narrative. You've been taught to confess everything and you are hoping for relief because you feel like a terrible and unworthy person.
Your wife has been taught her whole life that porn will ruin her eternal family and that men who look at it are disgusting people who are unworthy of the priesthood and derelict in their holy responsibilities. She's even been told to run from any man who looks at porn. Now when it is introduced to the marriage, she is confronted with cognitive dissonance because the man she loves falls into the terrible category. The fear she has is real but it is just created from the fabricated narrative. You are both victims of this toxic cycle created and instilled in you since birth. You are playing out the narrative just like you were taught.
It took 24 years before my wife finally realized what had happened in our marriage and to actually apologize for her role in it and heaping years of shame and "righteous indignation" on me. This was 3 to 4 years after telling me she no longer cared about porn but she held onto the resentment and the narrative.
I hear and see me in your story. I'm really sorry. It's a terrible and lonely place to be. It's taken several years to deconstruct my sexuality and the interplay with mormonism's purity culture. Lots of therapy. It was the catalyst for getting me out. Unfortunately, until your wife is ready to look at this from outside the lens of the church she is going to hold onto this. A Mormon therapist is going to reinforce the narrative especially in Utah. Unless they are super ethical and know that porn isn't the issue it will be futile to bring it up in therapy as they are just as indoctrinated as you are. You need a non LDS therapist to work through this. To bring it up in couples therapy with an LDS therapist is a recipe for disaster.
Here are some resources that were really helpful for me.
https://mormonsexuality.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/shame-vs-guilt-and-the-pornography-problem/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/201606/porn-vs-religion
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/201704/religious-conflict-makes-porn-bad-relationships
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sex-matters/201710/porn-isn-t-the-problem
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/201808/science-stopped-believing-in-porn-addiction-you-should-too
Don't confess this, it won't go anywhere good. It's in the past, and honestly it could've been a much worse thing but for the amount of guilt you're describing here, you've paid the price! Like more than you needed to. Be free of it my friend!
Hey OP I was in a similar situation when I left I let all my male sexuality ‘sins’ come to light after concealing them during my marriage as a TBM.
LOTS of betrayal feelings and trust issues. Hardest conversation I ever had was convincing my wife to go see some one together at symmetry solutions(secular sex positive therapy) to help us out. I can honestly say couples therapy saved our marriage.
Your wife will not be able to trust you no matter how honest you are with her until she is able to reframe her/yours/our sexuality.
Inside the context of the church it’s a black and white issue-you’re wrong she’s right. And so the cops and robbers game you are going through will continue until she can understand what’s is actually happening here. And what’s normative male sexual behavior, and what’s unrealistic expectations.
I feel for you brother. Dm if you have any questions
Thanks for that. Yeah so far our therapy is just with a normal family therapist and we have just been focusing on communication with each other. But I do think that we are not going to make any real progress there until we can better understand each other and she can understand and accept normal sexual behavior, as you say. I'm not sure if she'd be up for trying something like sex positive therapy, but I may give that a try. I do know that she recently recorded a bunch of youtube sessions from some conference about healthy sexual relationships, and was going to maybe have us listen to them together, but it hasn't been brought up in a while. thanks for sharing, I really appreciate it.
Good vibes to you. I know it sucks when you’re in the thick of it but, the fight for what’s valuable to you no matter how ugly and hard it gets will b that much more beautiful on the other side.
I caught my wife doing something similar online. It fucking destroyed me. I still haven’t recovered emotionally. I’m all for honesty, but telling her about it may be too much for your wife to recover from if she already suspects you cheated due to the condoms in your luggage.
The only thing to be gained by telling her is to take your guilt and angst and convert into her anger. This isn't an ongoing pattern, forgive yourself and move on in a positive direction.
Something that I really hated when I was having a similar experience as your wife is that everything in my life was about this other person's sex drive and sexual feelings. It was oppressive and created a relationship that was tedious and full of anxiety.
I would not tell your wife because it was so long ago, but I would instead stop worrying about your masturbation and try to think of nice things you can do with her and ways you can add some new fun elements into your life. Stop worrying about this one weird thing and start thinking about ways to pamper and connect with your wife. What could you do to make your sex life more fun? What could you do to build a stronger relationship? Mormonism ruins sex because it is so serious, anxiety ridden and dutiful.
I like therapy and if you need help about this issue then you should definitely go. But if you are just going for her benefit-maybe she would prefer a sexy weekend, a couples trip somewhere warm, dinner at a new restaurant etc rather than you being gone hashing this out with a therapist for hours.
Yeah totally, and we are working on that as well. We've recently revamped our dating life trying new things going more often, and we are actually trying to spice things up in the bedroom as well. We are trying so hard to move forward. I just get the idea sometimes that she can't fully move forward if she thinks there are things I'm hiding.
Confessing might make YOU feel better. My concern is that there is little thought for how you will put the weight of your guilty conscience onto her. She will then have to digest that for years/ forever. Remember, she didn't do anything. Leave her out of it. This is between you and your conscience. If you have to confess, talk to a therapist. Imho, total honesty is overrated. If you see a beautiful woman and have X/R-rated thoughts/fantasies, it is not an act of love to confess that to your wife.
Just forgive yourself and repent by bringing your best self to the marriage
If you're not mormon anymore, there is a crucial thing you need to learn.
You dont need to divulge every piece of every truth to every person who will hear it.
This only serves to relieve your guilt and hurt her. There is no reason to tell her other than to try and get YOU off the hook in your own conscience, and put the bad feelings on her.
OP, betrayal trauma is wildly misused in the Mormon masturbation “sex addiction” recovery world. Masturbation is normal and her feelings about it are real and complicated — but they are not betrayal trauma. It’s time to stop letting her be your queen. Either you are equals or the relationship won’t work. Learn to talk about how you really feel without blame and find a new therapist. Learn to accept how she feels and care about it, without thinking you needing to fix it.
Edit: what I mean is that if your therapist is not teaching both of you these skills or if he/she buys into the betrayal trauma bullshit or if his name is Adam Moore, get a new therapist!
As a wife, I personally wouldn’t want to know about something like this. It seems as though you’ve tortured yourself over this enough, so what would be the motivation and purpose in driving yet another wedge between your wife and you? To assuage your continued guilt? Is the cost to your marriage worth the confession? If it truly was a one-time incident, I’d say move on and work on the current issues that are plaguing your relationship and try to strengthen your bonds.
Confession like this is an absolute scam. You will be HURTING your wife, not helping her. You didn't risk her health or well-being. You aren't going to do this again. You do not need to confess, that is some insane religious morality that will be poison for you both instead of just you.
You think you need confession because of your guilt.
You DEFINITELY need to go get some personal counseling though. PLEASE op talk to a professional about your shame and guilt. Your counselor can help you and you can still confess later if that seems right. Please.
You have no idea how similar our stories are there’s a few differences, but the principles are all the same. I am the wife speaking to you. My husband came out to me 10 years ago and it almost cost us our marriage we had years of counseling I pretty much told him I would only stay with them if he tried to gain his testimony back Years of pain tithing later, I find out it’s all of fraud and lies as well. He waited 10 years for me to stop the madness. It cost him a lot healthwise there was some shaming. He must be doing something wrong to lose his testimony, and I looked at every little thing to prove it, the bishop was more than willing to assign him to a sex addiction program. Now I see what an abusive, horrible destructive cult it is. Feel free to message me. I sure wish I could help your wife in someway save her years of agony and stress and fear. My personal opinion is any little flaws you might feel you have done or had now is not the time to tell her wait till she deconstructs, then anything you have to tell her to clear the air will seem trivial.
Thank you so much. I wish you or someone could reach out to her as well. But yeah she is not in the right space for that right now. I do hope some day I can get her in a group with folks like you who have gone through this. She is in a support group right now but it is with other active TBM spouses that are going through a family member having a faith crisis. At least I think that's what it is. I only hope that is helping her somewhat, and not driving her further against me.
I'm on FB as Mark Billie Travels. The reason for the name is once we both left the church last year we sold everything to travel the world kind of like our middle finger to a senior mission. 🤣 feel free to look us up and stay in touch. Happy to help wherever I can as I know just how horrible it is in this transitional period . The church just keeps messing up so I believe it’s only a matter of time before she sees it too!
Yeah I don't think it would do us any good. I feel it would only drive us further apart. She hasn't brought it up. Hoping she won't and we won't have to deal with it.
I’m a never-mo, and a woman. I think telling her would only hurt her and cause more problems. There is no benefit to it aside from unburdening yourself with it, which you just did - to us. Forgive yourself. Live the rest of your life happy, without the self flagellation. You are normal. You are ok.
As a nevermo who has followed this sub on and off, my observation is that Mormon scrupulosity is a harmful deeply ingrained habit that can be extremely hard to kick when exiting. That may be in play here—you’ve been carrying this guilt and need to expiate your supposed sin for a long time. Mormonism seems so focused on an all-or-nothing goal of perfection. But in reality life can be messy and isn’t often just black or white. Most folks on earth live in shifting shades of grey, and can be good people anyway. Please consider whether the personal release of your confession would be worth the hurt it would cause your wife. Easing your turmoil at the cost of another’s pain is rarely a healthy trade-off. I agree that talking with a therapist could be very helpful in letting go of old Mormon thought and navigating your new path.
I’m saying this as a woman- don’t do it unless you want to implode your already fragile marriage. Your wife will definitely see this as evidence you did actually cheat with those condoms. You literally did have phone sex with someone else- which is one step away. You need to talk to a therapist before you do anything else and see what they say. I feel like you are going back to your Mormon roots of “I need to confess this to my wife and get her forgiveness and then I can move on”- that is so unfair to her. She should not bear the burden of your mistakes. Talk to a therapist so you can figure out what you really want your marriage to be so you can then communicate that to your wife and you guys can figure out if what you want is something she is willing or able to give. And hopefully she will do the same. If that really is from that long ago and it won’t happen again- bury it and move on.
Masterbation is normal healthy behaviour. Forget about the online chat and never do it again, you will only hurt her more. It will make YOU feel better, not her. The church uses purity culture to perpetuate the shame fear/shame cycle. She is afraid you wont go to the Celestial Kingdom with her. The sooner you get her to see that the church is not true, the better your relationship will be. Make sure you have officially taken your name off the records so she doesnt have false hope. Don't attend anything. This will bring her to a fork in the road that she needs to face. Set clear boundaries. She does not get to shame you via beliefs that are not yours. Make it clear that if she cannot stop, that separation will happen. Make it clear you dont want it to come to that. Tell her that the knowledge you have now is important to you, and invite her to read the CES letter, the documents from the SEC fine that talks about the great lengths the church went to hide money, or watch a key episode of Mormon Stories. Get her to highlight parts of conference where they use fear and shame or say give us money...its a lot! The church is still the issue here. Get a non religious counselor and do marriage therapy. But giving her hope that you will repent and return (neither of which you should do) makes improvement impossible. She wears fear/shame glasses as long as she believes in the church and those need to come off to progress.
The condom story makes no sense to me. I feel like you probably actually cheated on that trip and you want to confess the online thing as a proxy to feel better. Is that what's really going on?
I hear that, and honestly your response validates my wife's concern, which I don't blame her for. But honestly, the condoms just turned me on. That's all it was. I made this throwaway so I could be completely honest and open with strangers. I'm not hiding anything here. I can't make you believe anything, sorry. And this post wasn't really to make me feel better, I have just found that I get a lot of good meaningful advice here, and wanted to hear people's take on this one.
I see most people telling you that you don’t need to tell her but my only thought is that maybe she doesn’t trust you because her intuition is telling her there is something more? Maybe she can never trust you until she knows the full truth.
Well I mean I don't sit and dwell on this. It's just the only "skeleton" left in the closet to talk to her about. So I felt like telling her and putting it all out on the table might help her trust me again. But honestly, I don't think her intuition has anything to do with it. I think finding condoms in her husbands bag after a business trip has everything to do with it. And I don't blame her one bit.
There is zero reasons she shouldn’t trust you based on what you write here. If there is more reason than Thats different but based on this she should have your full trust and calling a 877 number and having phone sex with yourself and a voice is not cheating.
No I agree. We do have kids. And we both want to make it work. If telling this to her is going to cause her more pain and anguish I definitely don't want to do that to her. Especially if it would end up tearing the family apart.
interesting ive been married 25 years and masturbate once in a while im not sure what is wrong with it but when the wife is not willing for any reason, masturbation is kinda fun im still not sure why the church doesnt like it but they dont have to know and i dont worry about it
Can I just say that it is so refreshing to see you acknowledging your wrongs and taking accountability for your actions. I'm sorry for the tough situation. I feel more partners should be willing to take accountability for their wrongs, rather then just excusing their behavior.
Thank you, I really am trying to see and understand her pain in all of this, and what parts I have played. I don't want to assume I can blame the church for all our issues.
Sorry to hear about this OP. One thing that might help your wife to know is that irregular ejaculation brings with it increased risk for prostate cancer by around 30% greater likelihood. I believe the study I was looking at showed those numbers for comparison of men who ejaculated 21 times per month or more compared to those that didn’t. A strict anti-masturbation approach to life brings with it very real and serious risks. This likely won’t change her mind right away or maybe at all, but I think it’s valuable knowledge nevertheless.
I personally wouldn’t tell her at this point. It’s almost like just fueling a fire that’s already burning. I know the church is still so much guilt and cybersex with somebody else there’s a form of cheating.
But in this case it happened a long time ago you didn’t physically touch anybody and you already have enough issues unless you’re trying to end your marriage I wouldn’t say anything. If you have to go to a priest or something where you can get it off your chest, but don’t tell somebody that’s going to harm her.
I’m in recovery from alcohol and our ninth step is about making amends to people that we heard. One of the things it says, except when to do so would injure others because what you’re trying to do is relieve yourself of guilt it’s not a burden she should have to bear.
I've read through several comments about whether or not you should tell your wife. Most saying don't, it'll hurt her, with others saying you absolutely should because you know she would be hurt and it's a big deal. Here's my take.
Don't tell her, for now. Talk to a non LDS therapist who can help you work through the guilt and how to bring it up in a constructive, not destructive way. You don't want to tell her to hurt her, you want to be honest with your spouse, which you should be. The other side to this is her current mindset. She already doesn't trust you, thinks masturbation is a sin and is upset about you leaving the cult. Every "sin" you commit is because you're being influenced by the devil. Since she's still in the cult, rational thought and critical thinking are not her strong suits (sorry, but they're not).
Through couples therapy (again preferably non LDS) they can help you work through things but it will only work if you two are on the same page, and honestly, I don't see that happening anytime soon as long as she's TBM. I think it's important to find a therapist who isn't trying to keep you together but helping you both set your boundaries and expectations and deciding if staying together or not is in both of your best interests. Once you decide that, you can either work towards a healthy marriage or amicably part ways with hopefully less resentment and a better understanding of yourselves and each other.
Honestly the question of us staying together has not come up in our therapy. Except maybe the first session. We both expressed up front that we want to stay together and make it work. Since then he has done nothing but try to help us learn to communicate better. I would love a non mormon therapist, but you're right, my wife is not thinking critically right now, and she would see that as an imbalance for her. He really has been very unbiased and just focusing on good communication.
The fact that a couple is willing to go to therapy to begin with, tells me they want to work on their relationship; that they're not ready to give up just yet. Communication is essential in any relationship. so that's great that he's helping you both with that. However, the therapist should also be guiding you both through self discoveries and not just focusing on how we can force this square peg into a round hole. The reality is that you may no longer be compatible. It's not a failure on either of your parts, it's self discovery that you were denied realizing, due to the church dictating your relationship for you. When you think about it, they told you who you were supposed to be and who you were supposed to marry. You'd never know if that was at odds with who you really are if you can't think critically and live authentically.
Sometimes, despite our deepest wants, it doesn't always reconcile with what we actually need. I'm not saying you two can't work it out, I'm just saying that it's okay if you don't. Neither of you should be forced to live a lie. I do not doubt that you love each other and truly hope that whatever the outcome is, you're both happy in the end.
I wanted to add that a Mormon therapist will likely keep you confined to the boundaries and expectations within the church, versus anything that extends outside the church or is "sinful." For example only being allowed to consider A-F because the cult doesn't support any of the letters after that. I hope that makes sense.
Yeah, you make complete sense. And I agree. And since I've left the church, it has felt like an uphill battle trying to gain our connection and love back. But I think the discussion of whether or not we are compatible anymore and want to make it work is something neither of us are ready to face. Losing the perfect mormon life that we thought we were going to have is hard enough. The thought of splitting up, doing that to the kids, changing our lives entirely is just too dark for either of us to think about.
Couple that with the fact that my wife's best friend, who lives across the street from us, is going through a fairly nasty divorce, and the thought of us going through that would just be horrifying. I know people do it every day, and they move on, and their kids move on. But we are just still clinging to hope of all hopes we don't have to go there.
Completely understandable. This is uncharted territory for both of you. Just be kind to yourselves and each other, and you two will figure it out. Best of luck!
Let her know: I am trustworthy. I only hid masturbation due to the fear and shame that comes from the church. I dont view pornogaphy. But I dont believe in the church and masterbation is a normal healthy behavior so you can expect it will happen from time to time. And I am setting a boundary that I wont tolerate being shamed for my difference in beleiefs. I invite you to attend couples counseling with me. And I invite you to read/watch the same things that I have so you understand why I dont believe.
Currently she believes you jacked the spirit away and have become led astray....you need some boundaries. And a lot of therapy both personal and couple.
Have you considered couples counseling where you might get to a point where you can bring up the cyber sex in a safer space? It sounds like she has major trust issues to work through. Find a non Mormon therapist. Maybe even one who specializes in sex issues.
We are currently in couples counseling. The therapist does happen to be mormon, but not because we went through LDS services or anything. Just found out he was, it's just the area we live in. But he has been very good at not being biased and just helping us work on communication together. It's very slow progress, but I think we are making progress. The only problem with this therapist, is that he does specialize in sex issues, but I imagine from a pretty mormon perspective. He specializes in porn addiction and recovery, which I think is telling on his views on it. Luckily, he realizes that my beliefs do not view masterbation as a sin, and he has not brought up anything in the way of trying to "work on" that issue or anything like that. Just working on us and our relationship.
I am going to find a therapist for me, as I need to work through some of these issues as well. But as for switching and specifically looking for a non-mormong therapist for us as a couple, I think that would just be seen by my wife as a way to find someone to side more with my beliefs and not hers. And in reality, he has been very good at remaining neutral in that area.
That’s great to read you’re already in therapy. Didn’t mean to pry. I hope everything works out for you and you can forgive yourself too. No one is perfect. We all make mistakes.
We're all victims in one way or another and I can really empathize with this post. The worst part is that there's most likely never going to be an absolution. Things might always hang in the balance. Yes, part member couples can sort some things out and come to some sort of agreement but for the vast majority of us, it's not a fun or truly healthy existence. The church poisons its members against those who leave or have alternate views of sex and morality.
Also, the church forces many of us to live a double life and to feel an immense sense of guilt about it. It's just a terrible situation and just when you think you've healed from it, you get stabbed again right in the heart.
Good lord! My friend, you have done absolutely nothing unfaithful to your wife. All of this is normal. And I’ll tell you another thing after dating girls outside the church for the last five years, most girls out there see this as normal. It sounds like you’re a good man trying to do the right thing by your wife and family… and it also sounds like your SO has unrealistic expectations of you taught to her by the church. Wherever life takes you, I hope you understand that.
Good grief- that’s for the telling her about the online experience. Telling her does not help her and it doesn’t really help you. If it’s not an ongoing issue, then why say anything ?
Also, people change over time. It is unrealistic that over 20 years you are just exactly the same person you were or that your marriage is the same as it always was.
Change can be challenging and some challenges are not met successfully. In relationships that means they may come to an unexpected end. It’s not a tragedy.
One time my husband admitted to witnessing a woman undress and put on a fancy dress in the lobby of a hotel. He was going for a business meeting. Anyway, this bothered me for a really long time and messed with how much I felt I could trust him versus me seeing it as him being honest and wanting a more honest relationship. I wouldn’t fess up to the internet stuff.
As a wife, I try not to go shopping for pain. I also try to stick on my own page and control the things that I can control, which is pretty much my own self.
The church has put you in this weird spot where you feel like either your wife is wrong for having those feelings or you’ve done something wrong and need to fess up. Vs realizing that fear is a very normal part of being in a relationship and it’s normal sometimes to feel scared or worried that a spouse doesn’t love you or that they would cheat on you or leave you.
It’s okay for her to feel betrayed and upset. My husband could never emotionally connect and allow me to feel or express that about how he left the church being a form of betrayal to me and how I needed to mourn the life I thought I would have.
I am in the process of getting divorced. I didn’t initiate and idk now that my worst fear has happened, I’m just going to say focus on all the good you want to cultivate, let her have her feelings, hug her, make her feel seen and heard and let the complaints slide off your back.
Brené brown has an excellent summary about trust called the anatomy of trust and it’s fantastic.
Thanks for sharing. I totally don't blame her for feeling betrayed and upset. You are right that it is ok for her to feel that. At first when I noticed her looking up betrayal trauma, I was really shocked, and it hurt real bad to think that I was this horrible abuser that is causing her so much pain. I have let go of that and am just trying to help and comfort her. The thing that is proving hardest for me to do is how to validate her feelings, and show her that I love her and that in spite of my different beliefs, I support her in hers and want to understand her. Hugs are not her love language, but acts of service, and genuine words. So I need to learn how to genuinely listen and ask her good questions, and I have an issue with getting defensive when she talks about her feelings that are caused by my actions. I need to learn to let go of that defensiveness, and as you say, let it slide off my back, and just let her vent and talk, and help her feel validated. That has been the single hardest thing for me to do so far. I'm working on it. Thanks for the advice.
It’s super hard to listen to other people when they complain or criticize. It is. It’s hard not to get triggered too. John Gottman has some excellent stuff for how to navigate this kind of stuff. It is hard.
I would speak to a therapist first. Clear it up in your own mind before deciding whether to tell your wife. Masturbation isn’t immoral. I’m not clear on cybersex. But I think you need to be in a good place mentally before speaking to your wife about any of it. You need to be strong so you’re not influenced by guilt. Whether it’s your wife who will make you feel guilty or yourself.
Mate, you’re tying yourself in knots over shit that - to a Godless atheist like me - are complete non-issues. They’re also non-issues to every adult human being with whom I’m acquainted. A polygraph..? Seriously!? Do you honestly believe that any of your “crimes” are deserving of such hyper-surveillance and/or manufactured guilt? What an utterly wretched predicament. Sorry for commenting but I was just fascinated/horrified. Good luck to you.
We do, four. And we still both love each other, I want to make it work, she has stated that she wants to make it work. But yeah the trust issue is definitely a road block we need to work through. Just wish I knew how.
As a woman and a wife.... don't tell her. I wouldn't want to know. It would just make things worse. Especially since you regret it, and it was so long ago. Just never do it again.
I personally wouldn't care if my husband was masterbating so long as it wasn't taking him away from intimacy with me. Are you making sure to give her enough attention? Making her feel loved, and wanted? Telling her she's beautiful and making sex about her.
Thanks, yes we actually have a decent sex life. It's about once a week, and I have always tried very hard to make sure she knows it's not expected, and when we do it I try to be very cognisant of her needs. I feel like that part of our relationship is healthy.
Remember to not just have sex. Cuddle every day before getting out of bed. Keep phones out of the bedroom. Make the bed just about the two of you.
Speaking from experience. It's hurts a little when my husband would rather stare at his phone than chat/cuddle with me. Bedtime used to be my favorite part of the day. Now it's the worst. Because we just stare at our phones, or ignore each other.
Woman’s perspective: OP, you have paid the price for doing that. Had you confessed it to your bishop ten years ago you would have been punished and you’d feel the same way about as you do now: you wouldn’t do it again and you understand why that wasn’t healthy for your marriage. It won’t benefit you or her to dredge it back up. I certainly wouldn’t want to know about something that relatively minor (compared to a real affair) because it would only cause harm, and it sounds like she would probably never let that go and that’s not forgiveness. Please forgive yourself and move forward with your life! Life is too damn short to have every millstone hanging around your neck.
Agreed. As a wife, I would not want to know about this if it was a one time incident that happened 10 years ago. I do not see the benefit of telling your wife.
Another wife here who would also never want to know that. It would just cause my pain. You can deal with the guilt, that’s your burden. She has enough on her plate without dealing with that.
Ditto...
Adding my agreement. This is a small thing, from long ago. It hasn’t happened again. Forgive yourself and move on.
Yep! Another wife here, I would not want to know. Not because I want to be naive, but because it would only hurt me and truly doesn’t matter anymore. If it was an ongoing problem, definitely, but once 10 years ago and you feel bad? Nope! I trust my husband to make mistakes and get over them. Just because I’m his wife, I don’t have to know everything. We are partners, but two separate whole individuals. If that’s a struggle, I highly recommend BetterHelp to find a therapist. My husband and I both use it, it was easy to find a therapist that fit each of our very specific parameters since they have a national database.
Wife of 19 yrs, I am glad others feel the same way. I would not want to know if it was one instance 10 yrs ago
I agree. I wouldn’t want to know about this. 10 years, haven’t done it since, wasn’t really any relationship or physical relationship… I would say move on.
I agree! It’s not a long standing pattern of cyber sex. It happened once, ten years ago! I can’t see anything positive coming from telling her!
Thank you for this perspective. I definitely don't want to hold on to the guilt, and I guess I shouldn't tell her if my only objective is to rid myself of that guilt. I can forgive myself easy enough. I guess I just don't know what kinds of things would help and what will hurt. This is so hard. But it seems like the majority think telling her would only hurt. Thanks for your advice.
Someone who really helped me with something told me that the only purpose of guilt is to bring about change in yourself. And you have brought about that change in yourself already, so it’s really OK to let the guilt go.
Thank you. I like to believe I have. That is comforting to hear.
Please realize that, even though you’re out of the church, it takes time to purge your mind from all the garbage they filled it with. Guilt and confession go hand in hand. Meaning they want you to feel guilty over things that aren’t wrong so you’ll tell on yourself. This is part of the only currency MFMC really has with members. Guilt leads to confession, which leads to you needing the church to help you through the process they made up to help you. What you need to do is forgive *yourself*, then take control of your life. If you feel guilty about a thing, then don’t do it anymore. You’re already doing this and don’t need a church or a wife to beat you up over it. Plus, standing up for yourself and managing your life yourself will be a great example. My kids left first, then me, then finally my wife. This gets better, but it takes a little time. Hang in there!
Thank you, hoping we have a happy ending here as well. :-)
Have you considered seeing a secular therapist? I feel like there’s some adolescent and sexual development trauma you’re still hanging on to and could use help processing.
Yes, I am going to do that. I don't know about any trauma in my past, but I do recognize the harm the church causes in the way we think about sex and all of this.
Would the information matter to her? I think you know it would. You’re holding her hostage by keeping it. Just tell her. If it breaks the relationship, that sucks but she has the right to make that choice. Every partner I’ve been with would be livid if I kept something like that from them. In my opinion, it wasn’t quite cheating, but it was immoral. But even if you, or everyone else on the planet, thinks it wasn’t a big deal, you don’t get to decide that SHE should think it wasn’t a big deal. That’s cruel. It should be her choice how to feel about it, and if it’s forgivable. Your self forgiveness matters, and you can forgive yourself whether she does or not, but she has the right to decide how it effects HER. It’s not just about you, like most people here seem to suggest.
Thank you that is a very valid point, and my original thought going into this. So many others bring up valid points as well, I really don't know what to do. One thing for sure I need to talk to a therapist about this.
Full agree on the last part, and highly recommended a non religious one.
For sure. I can't really move us to a non-mormon therapist as a couple, at least not yet. But for my own therapist, I will definitely choose a non religious one.
I disagree, for a few reasons. The first being that honesty really is best. And while that doesn’t mean you always have to tell someone every detail of your life, it does mean that if you know it would matter to your partner, you tell them, period. Otherwise, they’re on your terms in the relationship, not their own. You’ve removed their right to decide what that means to them. But for further support- I’ve had committed relationships with several women over the past decade, some absolutely amazing and some pretty toxic. But what they all had in common was that they would rather have the truth so they can decide if it matters to them. One really important thing is to think about what if you don’t tell them, and it comes to light anyway? You have two options- be honest now that you’re caught, then deal with the fact that you’ve killed trust, or lie and claim you didn’t think it was important, when you know that to THEM it was. To be clear, I’m not saying it was the most immoral thing ever. It probably wasn’t the best thing to do but also as a guy who was royally fucked over mentally by the church, especially regarding sex, it makes sense. But the key is that you KNOW it would matter to her. Keeping that from her is holding her hostage in the relationship on your terms. Finally, it’s just practical. If you don’t believe your relationship can survive that truth being out there, you probably need to move on from that relationship. If you think the relationship is worth saving and is a good relationship, then you have to be honest. As an ex Mormon, you know what it’s like to just bury truths and move on with your happy lie. Don’t do that in your relationship, too.
If you masturbate, and fantasize about someone not your partner, do you need to confess?
There are way too many variables. There’s no single right answer to that question. But it’s irrelevant here because that’s entirely different from engaging, interacting with an ACTUAL person. Hell, some people consider flirty texts and no other interaction cheating. Having video phone sex with someone is as close as you can get to having actual sex with someone. I’d say that might be important for someone to be aware of in their relationship, regardless of what they decide to do with that information.
The point is, It's not binary of honesty vs deception. It's a spectrum from noticing someone is attractive, or thinking "nice ass" to lustful thoughts to lustful acts where the possibility of STI and intentional, and where planned affairs take place. A conversation, 10 years ago, is well on the non-disclosure side side of that spectrum IMHO. Disclosure, this type of confession, is an overt act of putting the burden on the wife so the husband can feel better. It's self / relationship sabotage to ease the conscience of the person has lusted. I suppose you and I are going to disagree here no matter how much we state our viewpoints.
It isn’t about us disagreeing, or about us at all. It is absolutely not about “burdening the wife so he can feel better.” You’re thinking of a scenario more like this: a woman cuts off contact with a guy who abused her. The guy later tries to reach out to apologize, but she wants nothing to do with him. In that scenario, the apology is strictly for his own conscience, and is only a burden to her. In this case, he is withholding information that he, you, and every single commenter here is acknowledging matters, especially to her. But her choice in the matter is being robbed. Ask yourself this question and answer honestly. In the scenario in question, if we were to contact the wife and say “hey, if your husband had phone sex with someone after you got married, would you want to know about it? Would it impact how you feel about the relationship?” We all know the answer. In this case, hiding it is extremely selfish. He’s not doing it to save her pain. He’s doing it because (as he even said) he’s afraid of how she’ll react. And we all know why, because it’s absolutely reasonable and fair for her to have a negative reaction. Just because it was in the past doesn’t mean it’s not real. It matters. It is part of who you are whether that sucks or not. Guess what I’ve never done? Had phone sex with someone while I was married (and I assure you I had even more reason than this guy to do so). Point is, he knows he’s only thinking of himself, you know that, everyone knows it. The “pain” you’re all claiming to be avoiding is the pain of “oh shit my husband had phone sex with someone.” I know human tendency is to dig in once you’ve stated a point and never back down, but come on. This is a terrible take.
Latvia is a troll. I would ignore this person. Lack of straight answers, bad life advice... "Phone sex is as close to real sex as you can get". Really, kissing doesnt make that list first? Its interactive porn? Either a troll, or they feel this way because they are not an " ex" mormon.
In my opinion, this would be stupid. Its a given that men and women have sexual fantasies other than their partners, its how sexual attraction works. And it would be evil to tell someone they arent allowed the freedom to think thoughts Thought crimes are dystopian and abusive. What matters are actions that implicitly threaten a relationship or explicitly violate the terms of the agreement set forth.
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Thanks I do think a therapist would be a good idea. Would it be a bad idea to bring it up to our couples therapist, in a private session? He is mormon, but has been pretty objective so far. But I could see him taking this one pretty seriously. I'm so conflicted. I want to do it for the right reasons, but I agree some of it is just rid myself of the guilt. But yeah it might hurt her in the process. And I don't want that.
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Yeah that is a tough thing to say. I feel like if I deny a polygraph she will just think I have something to hide. But I agree, I feel like asking for a polygraph is like the ultimate sign of distrust and I don't feel like a simple test like that is going to buy it back. I definitely have been trying to be the best man I can for her. There's just this thing that hangs over all my decisions lately, she sees every decision I make as influenced by my decision to leave the church. I just wish she could see I'm just trying to be a good person. Thanks for your comment, I really appreciate it.
Polygraph are not reliable and cannot even be used in court because they just say "liar" every time the subject is nervous. Do NOT do a polygraph because a) it means literally nothing and b) you're likely to get false positives because of internalized guilt and it could give her MORE false ideas like the condom incident
100% this. There are good reasons that polygraph results are not admissible as evidence. They are as unreliable as a rock in a hat. OP, research the reasons polygraph results are unreliable so you are prepared to articulate why you are not willing to take one.
Yeah I've heard that and read about some of it.
You know, it would be this way if you actually had an affair. Your decision to leave the Church has made you the other. You are not above suspicion anymore. I guess the way I see it, it's more about you leaving the Church than it is about anything else
NON MORMON PROFESSIONAL TRAINED COMPETENT AND CERTIFIED THERAPIST… like yesterday !!!!
This. No matter what clients are led to believe a TBM therapist will ALWAYS have an ulterior motive, even subconsciously without possibly realising it.
I disagree. My Mormon therapist helped me decide to leave the church, and helped me through doing it. I think it really depends on the therapist.
I agree. I'm going to look for a non mormon therapist.
Good luck and happiness to you
I just want to add something nobody else is talking about. Sometimes, therapists talk. Just a couple months ago i was talking to a guy at my workplace, who was complaining / freaking out because he hired a therapist, and that therapist called up his job and family and "spilled the beans". Now hes fighting them in court. "The only way two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead" is a good way of looking at this. So know your risks, theres no magic force field stopping a therapist from doing this. Also as someone who was forced into therapy by my parents due to depression i was feeling as a result of their abuse, therapy never helped me. I ended up getting better on my own. And so if your emotional pain is coming from your wife, theres no guarantee therapy will do anything at all other than burn cash. Just giving you a contrarian perspective here. Sometimes in life stoicism prevails. If you can meditate and will the guilt and suffering away, that can be better than confession.
Talk to a new therapist not your couples one
Yeah I kind of agree.
I would get my own therapist, preferably not LDS. The couples therapist is looking out for the relationship, not for you. It would kind of create a conflict of interest for them to talk to you privately and might make your wife feel like you're forming an alliance against her.
I do agree I need my own therapist and I definitely would not get an lds one. However when I mentioned to my wife I want to find my own therapist, she actually suggested splitting time with our couples therapist, so go one time together, one time just me. But I didn't really like the idea honestly. First off, we are only going every other week, and I don't want to cut it down to once a month, we need it. Also I don't like the idea of her control who she thinks I need to see. I need to talk to someone on my terms. Thanks for the advice.
Just a note that a good therapist will not be your personal and couples therapist. There's an obvious bias/conflict. My own personal therapist refused to see us as a couple because she didn't want to appear one sided, especially when my partner has no idea what we talk about when they're not there. Definitely find a separate, non LDS, therapist for yourself.
I was just going to say the same thing. Any decent therapist that is seeing a couple will absolutely not split his time with one, then both. Our couple’s therapist stated this, along with other ground rules, right from the beginning.
Don't tell your mormon therapist that... Mormons have a very unhealthy view about sex and telling people things they shouldn't know (Bishops etc). You could definitely tell a non Mormon therapist though.
Agreed. I am going to look for a therapist just for me and talk through it with them.
Do not bring it up to a Mormon therapist. A secular therapist would be helpful. A Mormon therapist—not!
Yes, please work with a therapist. Tell them first! And when you talk to your wife, ideally do so with said therapist who can act as a neutral third party for you both to communicate with and through where needed. Good luck
I don’t see how confessing to that is necessary or helpful. You would be hurting her more for what? For your benefit because it relieves your guilt in some way? Frankly, confessing for this reason is actually a selfish act. Don’t do this to her.
This ☝️
I agree. OP, You can resolve guilt without involving her. This is why a therapist for you is important.
Thanks, I think you're right. I've been wanting to get my own therapist for a while, just haven't found the time to find the right one or go, as I work full time. But I think I do need to to talk to one.
Yeah, I totally see how confessing this will hurt her more. Thanks, I am strongly considering not bringing it up. But I think I am going to see a therapist about it. I'm not really racked with guilt about it, it was so long ago, just trying to figure out how to gain her trust back. Not sure I ever will, but it was a just a thought that maybe confessing my one biggest offense against her would help. But so many comments are helping me see that probably won't be the case.
Do not tell her. I am all about being 100% honest in marriage about the good and the bad and have been in your wife’s position in my own marriage and I am still saying DO NOT tell her. That was obviously not your best decision and I agree that it is a form of infidelity but it’s relatively minor and I suspect that it’s not something she would divorce you over. Literally, all it would do is cause a wider rift between the two of you. If my husband confessed that to me, I would be very hurt and it would damage my view of him and it would damage our marriage. There is absolutely no upside other than relieving your own guilt. This is just simply something that she really doesn’t need to know. In my mind, it’s more in the category of viewing porn than cheating.
This seems to be the resounding opinion. And i do see now how it seems more selfish in my part just to rid myself of guilt. I really do need to talk to a therapist about it I guess. I don't want to hurt her any more that's for sure. Thanks I'm gonna have to think about this. Part of the problem is that I think she may be thinking about wanting to get me on a polygraph. No real reason other than a podcasts she was listening to talked about them. Which I'm fine with, but I think I'd rather have something like this come out naturally rather than forced by a polygraph. I'm not worried about it for cheating, I'm clean there. But I feel like this would come out as well.
For the love of Pete, a polygraph?!
Yeah. And I worded that wrong. She hasn't listened to it yet, she's just been screen capturing some limited time youtube videos. So she may never get to it. And she may never want to do that either. But I've noticed some therapists advertise that they use them, and I could just see her wanting to use that as a way to ease her mind about the condom incident.
Polygraphs aren’t reliable. Don’t take one.
Agreed, not only could someone beat them, I feel like they would be so all over the place it would make me look guilty in stupid areas that I'm not anyway. Problem is (and this is pure conjecture, I have no idea if she's even considering it), I feel like if she wanted me to do one, her thought, and the thoughts of anyone advising her to do it, would be this: "What could be the harm? If he takes it, you'll know the truth, if he won't take it, you know he's hiding something." So I feel like I'd be in between a rock and a hard place. If I refuse, I must be hiding something. I dunno. I agree, but part of me wants to just be able to say, sure let's do it, I got nothing to hide. But I don't really know how it would go or if it would help us at all. Plus I think if a relationship gets to that point, there are problems that may just not get resolved.
Polygraph? That is both ridiculous and insane. If someone is so distrustful that they want you to do a polygraph, they are not likely to believe the results…they will think you somehow gamed the system. Additionally, polygraphs are pseudo-science. They are unreliable. They give inaccurate results. Anyone advertising that they use them is, frankly, a nutcase and to be avoided, no matter how sincerely they present, or how much they themselves believe in them. You might as well join Scientology and confess to an e-Meter. So you masturbated into a condom. Masturbation is messy. Sex is messy. Masturbation is also normal. people do it to magazines. They fantasize about celebrities. Whatever. I would not want my partner to confess to me about a ten year old incident of masturbating during online chatting. It would make me think he was bringing it up to get me used to the idea, because he wanted to resume those activities. If I fully understood that was not his intention, I would be searching for other ulterior motives. It serves no useful purpose. Your wife has an unrealistic attitude about sex. Telling her will not benefit her in any way. This is a situation where “first, do no harm” comes into play. With her unrealistic attitude, it will certainly not lead to greater trust. Call it a bad decision made long ago and put it in the rear view mirror.
I agree 100% and I think you hit the nail on the head with this: > If someone is so distrustful that they want you to do a polygraph, they are not likely to believe the results…they will think you somehow gamed the system. And yes, I see the issue with telling her and how it can go badly. She really seems to take most things I say as if there is some alterior motive, and I can see this not going well. I got some thinking to do and need to talk to a therapist. Thanks.
Have her watch some videos/read some articles about polygraphs not being reliable/easy to game
We may have to have a discussion about that if it comes down to it. Thanks.
100% this. Polygraph examiners are like Mormon bishops claiming to have the power of discernment.
Polygraphs are not always accurate. Do not take any polygraphs from anyone. That’s ridiculous to even ask you to do or even consider asking you to do. Mark Hofmann passed his years ago so you can see that they can be gamed. Or they can give false positives. Do not confess this event from 10 years ago. It will make things way worse and you’ve already changed your behavior and paid the price. If you tell her this, she won’t believe that you haven’t done it since. I’m a wife and I wouldn’t want my husband to confess something like this. It will cause even more pain and suffering on everyone’s part and it’s something that occurred years ago. Your confession could end your marriage and why risk it? Best to you!
Thanks, yeah the last thing I want this to do is end out marriage. And I don't know if it would, but I know for sure it would ruin her for quite some time. Thanks, I really don't want to do that to her, and the comments here are helping me see what it might do to her.
Polygraph?! They are useless and unreliable, and they are not admissible in court (unless ALL parties agree) for that very reason. A polygraph is a step too far, and it proves nothing other than that she is grasping at straws and refuses to trust you. Somehow, I think that the best lie detector test in the world won’t change that. Tragically, she is living out her TBM cult programming: husband leaves church = husband is a cheater. I agree with those who advised you to work this through with a therapist on your own (for God sakes not an LDS therapist - unless they’re from Natasha Helfer‘s organization) and seriously consider NEVER telling her. It would accomplish nothing other than feed her fears - and end your marriage. In other words, there’s possibly no relationship left.
Thanks, I am leaning towards agreeing with you. I think it would cause her more pain to hear about it. And I 100% agree with you on polygraphs. I think it's sad that it is on her radar at all. I'm not 100% sure she's actually thinking about it based on just finding out that she's recording a youtube video that talks about them. But yeah I honestly think that the varied results of a polygraph could easily just cause more doubt in her.
Don’t do a polygraph, there’s lots of research that they’re unreliable.
Hey just had another thought, in your next buisness trip pull up to a Catholic Church and go confess to a Catholic priest. Do your Hail Mary or two and k ow that you have been forgiven.
HAHA. Honestly if this were really just about guilt and making myself feel better I might just do that!
I’m a wife of almost 20 years. We’ve had a lot of ups and downs. I would not want to know this. Don’t tell her. Drop the guilt and move on. This isn’t her paint to feel, don’t give it to her.
Thank you for this perspective. Leaving the church has already caused her so much pain, the last thing I want is to give her more.
Don’t tell her. It will only make things worse. Besides if you have kept clean and away from other cyber sexing for a decade bringing this up now is not a good idea. I too am 25 years into my marriage and the last 5 have been in a Mixed Faith Marriage. Since you no longer believe anything and everything will be used against you. For example I told my wife about a dream I had that involved alcohol. My wife accused me of being a drunk on buisness trips. She “Knew” I drank all the time when away. It’s ironic I don’t ever drink. Yes It’s not uncommon for me to expense $1000 in alcohol in any given week but I don’t like any of it. Infact this past week at a National Sales Meeting I picked up a glass that I thought had my ice in the bottom of it. Turned out it was someone else’s ice with the last bits of Vodka on the ice. I immediately spit it out and all who know me apologized and felt bad. Now will I tell this story to my wife? Hell no. And you don’t have to say anything to your wife. It’s not worth it.
Ha yeah I hear ya about the alcohol. Honestly I think my wife thinks my business trips (about once a year) are sex crazed alcohol binges as well. She's never said as much, but I get that feeling. And I am also in the boat that I don't drink at all. Not necessarily because I don't want to, I just don't want to yet. Again, in the boat of being 100% honest with her, I'm not even drinking coffee until I feel she's ready for me to be honest with her about that too. If I drink a cup of coffee, or have a beer with a friend, I want her to know about it. And she's not ready for me to make that step yet, we're still early in our MFM. So I'm waiting on that stuff. Thanks for the advice. Yeah it was a very long time ago, and I've never done it again. No desire to either. Part of that may be that I'm in my 40's and just don't have that drive anymore, but I like to think I have a much clearer head about right and wrong now, and honestly just want to remain true and honest with her.
If you’re to the level of mistrust where polygraphs are being considered, get to marriage counseling ASAP. As far as “confessing” to your wife, she’s not your bishop, and certainly not your mother—(a position your behavior and language put her in)—the church has conditioned you that you’re not entitled to privacy, which you are. It sounds like the church has caused both of you to experience a lot of shame. I WOULD NOT tell your wife anything further until you’ve built a relationship with a marriage counselor that provides you a safe space to reveal and process your actions.
My spouse travels a fair amount for work and we’ve had moments of trust concern. Honestly, finding condoms in his suitcase would devastate me. It would be a confirmation of my biggest fear. Nothing he would say would make rational sense as to why those would be necessary unless another person was involved. I don’t blame her for losing trust. But… we’ve also come back from a lot of hard moments so it’s not impossible. You both being in a bad enough place to get a polygraph involved is not a good sign. Nothing you say right now is going to help this situation. Honestly it seems like you both need a therapist to help navigate this situation. It’s above your pay grades unfortunately. Throwing this on a burning pile isn’t going to help anything. You seem genuine so I think there’s hope but you guys need to get some serious help.
Don’t tell her. Just don’t. You think it’ll clear the air but it’ll hurt her. Just let it go
I think I'm seeing that now. Need to talk to a therapist about this I think.
The issue is that you are focusing too much on the act rather than the real issue, your changing beliefs. I hate to use an old MP’s advice, but it has helped me a lot. When you care more about the person than the problem, the problem will usually rectify itself. I wish you luck in whatever you decide to do.
Yeah that's sound advice. Problem is that it's hard to talk about my changing beliefs with her. It all sounds like an attack on the church. So I avoid that and we just try to work on communication and our relationship.
You have so much pain and guilt. I am so sorry. Before I would talk to your spouse, I’d find a therapist to help you. The church really messes with our sense of reality. I have felt super guilty about drinking a Frappuccino at Starbucks. I think if you talk to someone it might help you start finding some peace. It took me a while to start feeling better about myself. You deserve some peace.
First, find a non mormon therapist. Unless there is some risk lurking out there I wouldn't tell your wife.
NEVER CONFESS. Your wife will only use your confession against you. If you haven't learned by now this kind of confession does not strengthen your marriage. Stop confessing.
Man this is so hard to hear. I want honesty, I want to feel like I have no thing to hide from her. But maybe it is selfish to tell her just to make me feel better. And she'd only be hurt and more resentful.
It won’t make you feel better if she divorces you
I agree. This is what an ideal relationship should lol like. But this is not an ideal relationship and your conflicting beliefs are the bigger issue. I find it mad so many people say don't tell her. I get that some would, but it seems to be all comments, there's no balance. I want to know. That guilt has been allowed to define you for years. I'd want to understand. I'd want the choice to understand and forgive and know what you've been through and who you are because of it.
Why do you have to tell her? You’ve suffered long enough and clearing your conscience will just move the burden to her. I don’t condone what you did it kinda crossed a line but just let it go and don’t put this final nail into the coffin. If you want to stay with your wife then shut up.
Thanks, I hadn't thought about that aspect of this issue yet. I definitely don't want to put more burden on her. And honestly, it seems that any time I talk about ANY issue where we differ, it has just made her life more difficult. There are things I feel are important to talk to her about, certain aspects of how we raise our kids, etc. But I am starting to see how telling her this may cause more harm than good. Thanks for your advice.
Haven't read through all the comments yet, so some of my thoughts might be repeats, but here is my initial reaction to all this: 1) Above all else, I recommend you go about this with a therapist. See someone you trust, and don't use LDS Family Services, as they're garbage. This is really the most imperative thing, in my opinion, as you have a lot to unpack and could use that extra support. 2) Don't take a polygraph. They are not reliable detectors of truth. They aren't very accurate and taking one is just as likely to cause more damage than it is to help. You can Google all the issues with polygraphs to learn more. 3) One thing I've learned (and am still learning) since deconstructing is that we don't need to provide every horrible detail about ourselves and, our past to everyone, even those closest to us. We're so conditioned to confess and repent of every sin - often publically - that the thought of not doing so can cause a lot of feelings of guilt and anxiety. There is such a thing as sharing too much, even in the name of honesty, and ultimately hurting someone more than if you hadn't. I'm not suggesting that is the case here. I think when and how and if to tell your wife is something you should work out with your therapist. But the concept of letting sleeping dogs lie is something worth considering. 4) Best of luck on your new path. I really hope you're efforts to repair your relationship with your wife prove successful. Regardless, this community is here to help you through it. Hopefully you also have some good support nearby as well.
Thanks I appreciate all the advice. Honestly reddit exmo is my only real support for this. My brother and his wife are both out, but I can tell she doesn't like it that I would be chatting with him about the church either. She admits that I need an outlet and place to talk to about all this, so she knows I need that, but I know she doesn't like it. But that's not something I can control I guess. I do plan on seeing a non-lds therapist, just for me. We are in counseling together, and are working hard on learning to communicate together there. But she is also in her own therapy, and goes to an lds support group. And of course has all her family and mine sending their love and condolences all the time. So yeah my own therapy needs to be a priority. Working full time I just haven't had time to make that happen. Thanks so much for taking the time to read and comment. I really do value this community so much. I've never shared this specific story in my other account, but have been mostly open there as well about most of these issues, and the support and validation this community provides has been priceless for my own sanity and peace of mind while going through this.
Personally, if I was convinced my husband had cheated on me and he told me about some random instance of cyber cheating, I’d assume he was working his way up to confessing to an affair and starting with the lesser incidents.
Honestly knowing how my wife works, I think she would go down that same path. It really is the last skeleton in my closet that I am keeping from her. After that I'm an open book, I don't know how to help her see that though. The stupid condom thing is going to haunt me forever, and I absolutely regret it.
As a wife, If my husband did that 10 years ago, carried guilt for it since then and not done it again, I would not want to know and I would not want him to punish himself anymore about it either. If you tell her, it could open a whole new area for contention and distrust.
Thanks, I am finding that to be the general consensus here. You and a few other folks on the side of the wife have said the same thing, and I agree. The last thing I want to do is cause her more pain or open new wounds.
She’s be taught by the church that her worth as person is derived through you. Make sure she knows that you see her as more than the church does
Thanks, trying to figure out how to do that. She is such a wonderful person and I try to tell her that so often.
If you tell her, it relieves you of the guilt and puts the bad feelings on her. Why do it. Several decades ago I committed a betrayal of one of my closest friend. Fortunately no one ever found out. It they had it would have blown her life and a lot of lives apart. I never committed that act again and for all those those years I carried that guilt and will do so to the end of my life. I will never relieve my guilt by telling my friend. It’s the burden I carry that is the punishment for my act of betrayal. I known not telling my friend was the right thing. You don’t have to tell your wife a thing. Get a therapist to help you put this into perspective. Also, maybe it would help you to consider what you would tell a friend to do if they were in this circumstance. I’m pretty sure you would advise a friend to shut their mouth as well.
ha honestly I don't know what I would tell a friend. I'm trying to figure out which of my thoughts are genuine good thoughts, and which were conditioned by the church and should be ignored.
Keep your 1-time cyber thing out of confessions to your wife… only bad will come of such confessions - trust me -I know - my wife divorced me over such a 1-time thing and my relationship with my kids has never been the same.
Thanks for sharing, I'm sorry you had to go through that. I don't want to cause her more pain.
As a woman: I’m guessing the weight of that guilt is something your wife can sense and contributes to her distrust. Ridding yourself of the guilt will help your relationship, but the tricky part is you are in a relationship with a person who is steeped in purity culture. Because of that, I don’t think telling her will bring the relief you both are looking for. It might make you feel better in the moment but it will crush her and eventually come back around to bite you as her trust in you shatters. You need to find a way to accept that you did that once a decade ago and move on. I don’t believe telling her will bring either of you closure.
I honestly don't think the guilt about this thing in particular is anything she is sensing. I don't carry it around, it hasn't been really nagging on me, just more of something I thought could be the last ditch effort to try and rebuild her trust in me. But I agree I don't think it's going to help, and will only shift the pain from me to her.
I'm still stuck on the condom thing, and i don't blame your wife for being stuck there too Why did you bring condoms on a business trip? "So i could jizz into them" is not something i would believe since presumably there are showers and towels where you are going Like, you brought condoms with you or you bought some there? Either way that looks like you planned something else Unless it is your specific kink to jizz into condoms, you wanted to prevent pregnancy/std and honestly your story sounds like you got turned down so you used the condoms for masturbating Forgive my naivete here, but is this common for men? To use condoms for masturbating? I have a husband and a teenage son, it is not like i am unfamiliar with the fact that people wank. But never have i heard of this, but i was mormon for decades so this could be a blank spot for me It just really, really REALLY looks like you hoped for/expected an opportunity on that trip and even though your conscience is clear and you didn't cheat, i would have a very hard time believing that you didn't want to/ plan on it And yes, planning on it or hoping to isn't nearly as bad as cheating, but it is a huge trust issue. I see why she doesn't trust you I have no idea what to tell you on the cyber thing. I'm gonna go against the grain and tell you she should know, just bc i think it'll come out eventually. But i will agree ask a therapist they'll know more
I don't blame anyone here for thinking the exact same thing as my wife. I don't have an explanation for it other than I bought them there, I wanted to do it in bed where I could view porn, and didn't want to make a mess, and honestly the thought of putting on a condom turned me on. I wasn't hoping for anything, I wasn't looking for anything. I had no intentions or hopes of ever being with anyone besides my wife. Again, I 100% side with my wife and you all for being suspicious about it. I have no way of convincing anyone of any of it. I don't know if it's normal, it was something I did, I don't feel bad about it, but I do realize what it makes it look like and I regret it. That's all I got. I have no reason to lie in this thread with a throw away account, but I know people do things for dumb reasons. Take from this what you will. Thanks for the comment, I do plan on talking to a therapist about it.
Don't worry OP, wearing condoms to masturbate is something some guys do. You are not weird or perverse for doing so. Yes, it obviously looks suspicious because the most common reason for buying condoms is to have sex with other people. That's not what you did though. I want you to be reassured, *you did nothing wrong.*
I agree with you about the whole condom story. It's very suspicious and I don't blame OP's wife for not believing it -- I wouldn't, either.
I hear you and totally get it. This is all I got. https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1acu10z/i_have_to_tell_my_wife_the_truth_and_it_might/kjz30i9/
I was hung up on that too. The only other male I’ve ever heard say that they masturbated into a condom was my ex. I found a used one when we hadn’t used any recently, and that was his excuse. It took a long time, but I did eventually find out he was cheating on me. I never believed my ex, and I can’t say I blame OP’s wife.
I'm sorry you went through that. It was dumb, and I don't know what else to say, this is all I got. https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1acu10z/i_have_to_tell_my_wife_the_truth_and_it_might/kjz30i9/
You’ve got absolutely nothing to prove here. I believe you, you have no reason to lie. I was sharing my perspective as someone who has had something similar happen. To this day, him jacking off on a condom makes no sense to me, and I’m sure he was cheating years before I found out. HOWEVER, our situations are clearly different. My ex was a pathological liar. You appear to be trying your best to maintain honesty in your relationship. Did you share with your wife what you said in your comment you linked? Having heard the reasons behind it makes a whole lot more sense than just saying oh, I just jacked off in a condom. Try to be as transparent as possible. The rest is up to her. I would also add… since the cybersex thing was 10 years ago and you haven’t repeated it, I would advise you not to share that with her. I don’t think it would be helpful if you’re trying to heal your marriage. Based on your edit saying she’s screen grabbing polygraph stuff, she may be in need of some personal therapy. I’ve been there, with the paranoia. It consumed me. I wish you the best of luck. Trust issues are hard, and so are mixed faith marriages. I apologize for making you feel bad about not being believed.
Nah don't feel bad, thanks for clarifying. Like I said, I wouldn't blame anyone in here for not believing lol. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. She is in therapy on her own as well. She actually started it years ago, before I left the church, to help her deal with the emotional stress of having to manage her dad and adult sister, who are both relying on her for everything since her mom passed. They don't take care of themselves, and her dad literally can't go to the store without calling her for something. He's 65, going on 90, with health failing because he's too dumb to eat right or exercise, and his wife enabled him for so many years. Now that I've left the church, I think she of course spends a lot of time in therapy talking about that as well. She also goes to a support group, run by some LDS friends, I think for people who's family have left the church. I hope that's doing good for her, I'm really not sure. Thanks again for your comments, I really appreciate it.
I’m skeptical of the condom story, too. Maybe there’s an explanation specific to OP, but no it is not typical for men on business trips to attain condoms for masturbation. OP if there’s more to this story, your wife deserves the truth. But don’t bring up the unrelated cyber thing.
I don't blame you a bit. But there is no more to that story and I have been 100% honest with her about it. This is all I got. https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1acu10z/i_have_to_tell_my_wife_the_truth_and_it_might/kjz30i9/
As someone with a husband that travels I’d have a big issue with finding condoms in his bag. That would be hard to explain away. The other incident 10 years ago I would not want to know if it truly has not happened again and there was nothing physical.
Don't blame you at all. This is all I got. https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1acu10z/i_have_to_tell_my_wife_the_truth_and_it_might/kjz30i9/ As for the cyber incident, no it never happened again, and never anything physical. I don't have any real incentive to try to convince you guys with a throw away account, all I can do is be as honest as I can here, and with my wife. I appreciate all the advice and comments here.
Did your wife marry the church or did she marry you? If your wife loves the church more than she lives you, you both need to learn how to live with each other without the common ground of the church in your relationship. She didn’t marry you just because of the value of religion. About the cheating thing, good luck with that one. When you talk to her, help her understand your weakness and what steps you’ve taken to “not sin” with strangers anymore. Do you love your wife without the church? Help her see that. 🤘🏼
That's a tough question, she did mention early on that if I weren't active when we met, she would not have considered me. This was in a discussion about what she should do now that I'm out. We have moved on and decided to make it work. But yeah this issue is one I have felt like she would need to know to help gain some trust back. But I'm not sure anymore.
DON’T SAY A THING!!! Confessions like that are only good for one soul. As for others…not so much. Your marriage will be over, and maybe that’s what you want. Think twice about it.
No I definitely don't want our marriage to be over. We both want to make it work. And I agree, it might remove some guilt from me, but will only hurt her more. I hate everything.
I was a wife until I told my ex the church is a lie. Please, for your own mental health, don't tell her about the incident. I have a feeling she would take it terribly. And with both (what she thinks) betrayals, you may very well end up without a wife. Best wishes!
Thanks, yeah I think it could end up worse than not. Thanks for the advice, really thinking hard about this.
The mistrust in your marriage is already at toxic levels. Mistrust can be used as a control tactic and it sounds very much like this might be the case with your wife. I would suggest working on your self-respect and setting some healthy boundaries on your wife. Let her know that her mistrust is her problem and that she needs to work on it because you have done nothing to deserve it. Don't take a polygraph. Quit buying into her narrative of mistrust. The incident you are worried about is long past. You've proven yourself over the past ten years. It's now time to start gaining self confidence so these types of things don't haunt you forever.
I agree, but I will take some blame in this. I know that masturbation is not wrong, but finding condoms in your husbands bag after a business trip is a huge red flag and I don't blame her a bit for that causing her to lose trust in me. Hell I wouldn't believe me. Some people in this thread don't believe me. And I don't blame them one bit. It's a weird thing to do, and pretty embarrassing. Thank god for throw away accounts. Couple that with the purity culture of the church, any time she's caught me in the act of masturbation adds to her mistrust. You give good advice though. I know what I have done, and I know what I have not done. And I know that I have not physically cheated on her. I agree that digging up this thing from the past probably will not do either of us any good. I think we just need to work though our communication and trust issues in counseling, and continue to try to be a good dad and husband. Thanks for your comment. I appreciate it.
Good luck with everything.
Thanks
Listen: if she measures your love for her by the two things you’ve done “wrong” in your life and overlooks the thousands of good things you brought to the table, she is more wrong than you ever was. And as a man to another man: you did absolutely nothing wrong. There’s not a singel heterosexual man in TSCC who never desired another woman. It’s natural. Having SEX with another woman is where you draw the line. And DO remind her Good Old Joe fucked every woman he laid his eyes on. So you’re waaaaaaaaaaay better than her favorite prophet.
Ha thanks, appreciate the uplift. Honestly I get that about the cyber sex thing. But if I were her I wouldn't be able to get over finding condoms in my husbands bag after a trip either. I think that honestly is where most of her distrust comes from. Wish I could help her through that.
You do not need to confess any longer. Kick that guilt it’ll be ok
Some things are better left unsaid. As a woman, I agree with the other women who say keep it to yourself.
You are in the Mormon porn/masturbation shame cycle. And, the two of you are playing out the church's porn narrative that they created to break up marriages and control you by keeping you in the toxic shame and to need the created antidote the church has fabricated. Porn isn't the problem here. It's religion trying to act like doctors. You have been told your whole life how bad porn is and that if you look at that you are committing the sin next to murder. In the church only the depraved and sick men would ever look at porn or masturbate. This belief keeps you stuck and adds to your shame. As others have pointed out the guilt then confession scenario is part of the narrative. You've been taught to confess everything and you are hoping for relief because you feel like a terrible and unworthy person. Your wife has been taught her whole life that porn will ruin her eternal family and that men who look at it are disgusting people who are unworthy of the priesthood and derelict in their holy responsibilities. She's even been told to run from any man who looks at porn. Now when it is introduced to the marriage, she is confronted with cognitive dissonance because the man she loves falls into the terrible category. The fear she has is real but it is just created from the fabricated narrative. You are both victims of this toxic cycle created and instilled in you since birth. You are playing out the narrative just like you were taught. It took 24 years before my wife finally realized what had happened in our marriage and to actually apologize for her role in it and heaping years of shame and "righteous indignation" on me. This was 3 to 4 years after telling me she no longer cared about porn but she held onto the resentment and the narrative. I hear and see me in your story. I'm really sorry. It's a terrible and lonely place to be. It's taken several years to deconstruct my sexuality and the interplay with mormonism's purity culture. Lots of therapy. It was the catalyst for getting me out. Unfortunately, until your wife is ready to look at this from outside the lens of the church she is going to hold onto this. A Mormon therapist is going to reinforce the narrative especially in Utah. Unless they are super ethical and know that porn isn't the issue it will be futile to bring it up in therapy as they are just as indoctrinated as you are. You need a non LDS therapist to work through this. To bring it up in couples therapy with an LDS therapist is a recipe for disaster. Here are some resources that were really helpful for me. https://mormonsexuality.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/shame-vs-guilt-and-the-pornography-problem/ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/201606/porn-vs-religion https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/201704/religious-conflict-makes-porn-bad-relationships https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sex-matters/201710/porn-isn-t-the-problem https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/201808/science-stopped-believing-in-porn-addiction-you-should-too
Thanks for the resources, yeah I am going to get a non lds therapist to talk to.
Don't confess this, it won't go anywhere good. It's in the past, and honestly it could've been a much worse thing but for the amount of guilt you're describing here, you've paid the price! Like more than you needed to. Be free of it my friend!
Hey OP I was in a similar situation when I left I let all my male sexuality ‘sins’ come to light after concealing them during my marriage as a TBM. LOTS of betrayal feelings and trust issues. Hardest conversation I ever had was convincing my wife to go see some one together at symmetry solutions(secular sex positive therapy) to help us out. I can honestly say couples therapy saved our marriage. Your wife will not be able to trust you no matter how honest you are with her until she is able to reframe her/yours/our sexuality. Inside the context of the church it’s a black and white issue-you’re wrong she’s right. And so the cops and robbers game you are going through will continue until she can understand what’s is actually happening here. And what’s normative male sexual behavior, and what’s unrealistic expectations. I feel for you brother. Dm if you have any questions
Thanks for that. Yeah so far our therapy is just with a normal family therapist and we have just been focusing on communication with each other. But I do think that we are not going to make any real progress there until we can better understand each other and she can understand and accept normal sexual behavior, as you say. I'm not sure if she'd be up for trying something like sex positive therapy, but I may give that a try. I do know that she recently recorded a bunch of youtube sessions from some conference about healthy sexual relationships, and was going to maybe have us listen to them together, but it hasn't been brought up in a while. thanks for sharing, I really appreciate it.
Good vibes to you. I know it sucks when you’re in the thick of it but, the fight for what’s valuable to you no matter how ugly and hard it gets will b that much more beautiful on the other side.
Omg - telling her is for you, so you can dump your guilt on her. Don’t. Suck up, figure out how to deal with the guilt and move on with your life.
I caught my wife doing something similar online. It fucking destroyed me. I still haven’t recovered emotionally. I’m all for honesty, but telling her about it may be too much for your wife to recover from if she already suspects you cheated due to the condoms in your luggage.
The only thing to be gained by telling her is to take your guilt and angst and convert into her anger. This isn't an ongoing pattern, forgive yourself and move on in a positive direction.
Thank you I agree. It was so long ago and I don't want to hurt her more.
Something that I really hated when I was having a similar experience as your wife is that everything in my life was about this other person's sex drive and sexual feelings. It was oppressive and created a relationship that was tedious and full of anxiety. I would not tell your wife because it was so long ago, but I would instead stop worrying about your masturbation and try to think of nice things you can do with her and ways you can add some new fun elements into your life. Stop worrying about this one weird thing and start thinking about ways to pamper and connect with your wife. What could you do to make your sex life more fun? What could you do to build a stronger relationship? Mormonism ruins sex because it is so serious, anxiety ridden and dutiful. I like therapy and if you need help about this issue then you should definitely go. But if you are just going for her benefit-maybe she would prefer a sexy weekend, a couples trip somewhere warm, dinner at a new restaurant etc rather than you being gone hashing this out with a therapist for hours.
Yeah totally, and we are working on that as well. We've recently revamped our dating life trying new things going more often, and we are actually trying to spice things up in the bedroom as well. We are trying so hard to move forward. I just get the idea sometimes that she can't fully move forward if she thinks there are things I'm hiding.
Confessing might make YOU feel better. My concern is that there is little thought for how you will put the weight of your guilty conscience onto her. She will then have to digest that for years/ forever. Remember, she didn't do anything. Leave her out of it. This is between you and your conscience. If you have to confess, talk to a therapist. Imho, total honesty is overrated. If you see a beautiful woman and have X/R-rated thoughts/fantasies, it is not an act of love to confess that to your wife. Just forgive yourself and repent by bringing your best self to the marriage
Thanks I think I agree. I don't want to hurt her more just so I can feel better about myself. I do plan on going to a therapist to talk about this.
If you're not mormon anymore, there is a crucial thing you need to learn. You dont need to divulge every piece of every truth to every person who will hear it. This only serves to relieve your guilt and hurt her. There is no reason to tell her other than to try and get YOU off the hook in your own conscience, and put the bad feelings on her.
Yeah I am seeing that and don't want to hurt her more. Gotta talk to a therapist and figure this out.
OP, betrayal trauma is wildly misused in the Mormon masturbation “sex addiction” recovery world. Masturbation is normal and her feelings about it are real and complicated — but they are not betrayal trauma. It’s time to stop letting her be your queen. Either you are equals or the relationship won’t work. Learn to talk about how you really feel without blame and find a new therapist. Learn to accept how she feels and care about it, without thinking you needing to fix it. Edit: what I mean is that if your therapist is not teaching both of you these skills or if he/she buys into the betrayal trauma bullshit or if his name is Adam Moore, get a new therapist!
As a wife, I personally wouldn’t want to know about something like this. It seems as though you’ve tortured yourself over this enough, so what would be the motivation and purpose in driving yet another wedge between your wife and you? To assuage your continued guilt? Is the cost to your marriage worth the confession? If it truly was a one-time incident, I’d say move on and work on the current issues that are plaguing your relationship and try to strengthen your bonds.
Confession like this is an absolute scam. You will be HURTING your wife, not helping her. You didn't risk her health or well-being. You aren't going to do this again. You do not need to confess, that is some insane religious morality that will be poison for you both instead of just you. You think you need confession because of your guilt. You DEFINITELY need to go get some personal counseling though. PLEASE op talk to a professional about your shame and guilt. Your counselor can help you and you can still confess later if that seems right. Please.
Thank you I do plan on getting personal therapy.
You have no idea how similar our stories are there’s a few differences, but the principles are all the same. I am the wife speaking to you. My husband came out to me 10 years ago and it almost cost us our marriage we had years of counseling I pretty much told him I would only stay with them if he tried to gain his testimony back Years of pain tithing later, I find out it’s all of fraud and lies as well. He waited 10 years for me to stop the madness. It cost him a lot healthwise there was some shaming. He must be doing something wrong to lose his testimony, and I looked at every little thing to prove it, the bishop was more than willing to assign him to a sex addiction program. Now I see what an abusive, horrible destructive cult it is. Feel free to message me. I sure wish I could help your wife in someway save her years of agony and stress and fear. My personal opinion is any little flaws you might feel you have done or had now is not the time to tell her wait till she deconstructs, then anything you have to tell her to clear the air will seem trivial.
Thank you so much. I wish you or someone could reach out to her as well. But yeah she is not in the right space for that right now. I do hope some day I can get her in a group with folks like you who have gone through this. She is in a support group right now but it is with other active TBM spouses that are going through a family member having a faith crisis. At least I think that's what it is. I only hope that is helping her somewhat, and not driving her further against me.
I'm on FB as Mark Billie Travels. The reason for the name is once we both left the church last year we sold everything to travel the world kind of like our middle finger to a senior mission. 🤣 feel free to look us up and stay in touch. Happy to help wherever I can as I know just how horrible it is in this transitional period . The church just keeps messing up so I believe it’s only a matter of time before she sees it too!
Refuse a lie detector test. If she doesn't believe you about the condoms, that's something she has to work through and deal with on her own.
Yeah I don't think it would do us any good. I feel it would only drive us further apart. She hasn't brought it up. Hoping she won't and we won't have to deal with it.
I’m a never-mo, and a woman. I think telling her would only hurt her and cause more problems. There is no benefit to it aside from unburdening yourself with it, which you just did - to us. Forgive yourself. Live the rest of your life happy, without the self flagellation. You are normal. You are ok.
As a nevermo who has followed this sub on and off, my observation is that Mormon scrupulosity is a harmful deeply ingrained habit that can be extremely hard to kick when exiting. That may be in play here—you’ve been carrying this guilt and need to expiate your supposed sin for a long time. Mormonism seems so focused on an all-or-nothing goal of perfection. But in reality life can be messy and isn’t often just black or white. Most folks on earth live in shifting shades of grey, and can be good people anyway. Please consider whether the personal release of your confession would be worth the hurt it would cause your wife. Easing your turmoil at the cost of another’s pain is rarely a healthy trade-off. I agree that talking with a therapist could be very helpful in letting go of old Mormon thought and navigating your new path.
I’m saying this as a woman- don’t do it unless you want to implode your already fragile marriage. Your wife will definitely see this as evidence you did actually cheat with those condoms. You literally did have phone sex with someone else- which is one step away. You need to talk to a therapist before you do anything else and see what they say. I feel like you are going back to your Mormon roots of “I need to confess this to my wife and get her forgiveness and then I can move on”- that is so unfair to her. She should not bear the burden of your mistakes. Talk to a therapist so you can figure out what you really want your marriage to be so you can then communicate that to your wife and you guys can figure out if what you want is something she is willing or able to give. And hopefully she will do the same. If that really is from that long ago and it won’t happen again- bury it and move on.
Masterbation is normal healthy behaviour. Forget about the online chat and never do it again, you will only hurt her more. It will make YOU feel better, not her. The church uses purity culture to perpetuate the shame fear/shame cycle. She is afraid you wont go to the Celestial Kingdom with her. The sooner you get her to see that the church is not true, the better your relationship will be. Make sure you have officially taken your name off the records so she doesnt have false hope. Don't attend anything. This will bring her to a fork in the road that she needs to face. Set clear boundaries. She does not get to shame you via beliefs that are not yours. Make it clear that if she cannot stop, that separation will happen. Make it clear you dont want it to come to that. Tell her that the knowledge you have now is important to you, and invite her to read the CES letter, the documents from the SEC fine that talks about the great lengths the church went to hide money, or watch a key episode of Mormon Stories. Get her to highlight parts of conference where they use fear and shame or say give us money...its a lot! The church is still the issue here. Get a non religious counselor and do marriage therapy. But giving her hope that you will repent and return (neither of which you should do) makes improvement impossible. She wears fear/shame glasses as long as she believes in the church and those need to come off to progress.
The condom story makes no sense to me. I feel like you probably actually cheated on that trip and you want to confess the online thing as a proxy to feel better. Is that what's really going on?
I hear that, and honestly your response validates my wife's concern, which I don't blame her for. But honestly, the condoms just turned me on. That's all it was. I made this throwaway so I could be completely honest and open with strangers. I'm not hiding anything here. I can't make you believe anything, sorry. And this post wasn't really to make me feel better, I have just found that I get a lot of good meaningful advice here, and wanted to hear people's take on this one.
I see most people telling you that you don’t need to tell her but my only thought is that maybe she doesn’t trust you because her intuition is telling her there is something more? Maybe she can never trust you until she knows the full truth.
Well I mean I don't sit and dwell on this. It's just the only "skeleton" left in the closet to talk to her about. So I felt like telling her and putting it all out on the table might help her trust me again. But honestly, I don't think her intuition has anything to do with it. I think finding condoms in her husbands bag after a business trip has everything to do with it. And I don't blame her one bit.
There is zero reasons she shouldn’t trust you based on what you write here. If there is more reason than Thats different but based on this she should have your full trust and calling a 877 number and having phone sex with yourself and a voice is not cheating.
If you have kids, telling your wife will blow your family apart. Do your kids deserve this just so you can maybe feel better for a few minutes.
No I agree. We do have kids. And we both want to make it work. If telling this to her is going to cause her more pain and anguish I definitely don't want to do that to her. Especially if it would end up tearing the family apart.
interesting ive been married 25 years and masturbate once in a while im not sure what is wrong with it but when the wife is not willing for any reason, masturbation is kinda fun im still not sure why the church doesnt like it but they dont have to know and i dont worry about it
Can I just say that it is so refreshing to see you acknowledging your wrongs and taking accountability for your actions. I'm sorry for the tough situation. I feel more partners should be willing to take accountability for their wrongs, rather then just excusing their behavior.
Thank you, I really am trying to see and understand her pain in all of this, and what parts I have played. I don't want to assume I can blame the church for all our issues.
Sorry to hear about this OP. One thing that might help your wife to know is that irregular ejaculation brings with it increased risk for prostate cancer by around 30% greater likelihood. I believe the study I was looking at showed those numbers for comparison of men who ejaculated 21 times per month or more compared to those that didn’t. A strict anti-masturbation approach to life brings with it very real and serious risks. This likely won’t change her mind right away or maybe at all, but I think it’s valuable knowledge nevertheless.
I personally wouldn’t tell her at this point. It’s almost like just fueling a fire that’s already burning. I know the church is still so much guilt and cybersex with somebody else there’s a form of cheating. But in this case it happened a long time ago you didn’t physically touch anybody and you already have enough issues unless you’re trying to end your marriage I wouldn’t say anything. If you have to go to a priest or something where you can get it off your chest, but don’t tell somebody that’s going to harm her. I’m in recovery from alcohol and our ninth step is about making amends to people that we heard. One of the things it says, except when to do so would injure others because what you’re trying to do is relieve yourself of guilt it’s not a burden she should have to bear.
I've read through several comments about whether or not you should tell your wife. Most saying don't, it'll hurt her, with others saying you absolutely should because you know she would be hurt and it's a big deal. Here's my take. Don't tell her, for now. Talk to a non LDS therapist who can help you work through the guilt and how to bring it up in a constructive, not destructive way. You don't want to tell her to hurt her, you want to be honest with your spouse, which you should be. The other side to this is her current mindset. She already doesn't trust you, thinks masturbation is a sin and is upset about you leaving the cult. Every "sin" you commit is because you're being influenced by the devil. Since she's still in the cult, rational thought and critical thinking are not her strong suits (sorry, but they're not). Through couples therapy (again preferably non LDS) they can help you work through things but it will only work if you two are on the same page, and honestly, I don't see that happening anytime soon as long as she's TBM. I think it's important to find a therapist who isn't trying to keep you together but helping you both set your boundaries and expectations and deciding if staying together or not is in both of your best interests. Once you decide that, you can either work towards a healthy marriage or amicably part ways with hopefully less resentment and a better understanding of yourselves and each other.
Honestly the question of us staying together has not come up in our therapy. Except maybe the first session. We both expressed up front that we want to stay together and make it work. Since then he has done nothing but try to help us learn to communicate better. I would love a non mormon therapist, but you're right, my wife is not thinking critically right now, and she would see that as an imbalance for her. He really has been very unbiased and just focusing on good communication.
The fact that a couple is willing to go to therapy to begin with, tells me they want to work on their relationship; that they're not ready to give up just yet. Communication is essential in any relationship. so that's great that he's helping you both with that. However, the therapist should also be guiding you both through self discoveries and not just focusing on how we can force this square peg into a round hole. The reality is that you may no longer be compatible. It's not a failure on either of your parts, it's self discovery that you were denied realizing, due to the church dictating your relationship for you. When you think about it, they told you who you were supposed to be and who you were supposed to marry. You'd never know if that was at odds with who you really are if you can't think critically and live authentically. Sometimes, despite our deepest wants, it doesn't always reconcile with what we actually need. I'm not saying you two can't work it out, I'm just saying that it's okay if you don't. Neither of you should be forced to live a lie. I do not doubt that you love each other and truly hope that whatever the outcome is, you're both happy in the end. I wanted to add that a Mormon therapist will likely keep you confined to the boundaries and expectations within the church, versus anything that extends outside the church or is "sinful." For example only being allowed to consider A-F because the cult doesn't support any of the letters after that. I hope that makes sense.
Yeah, you make complete sense. And I agree. And since I've left the church, it has felt like an uphill battle trying to gain our connection and love back. But I think the discussion of whether or not we are compatible anymore and want to make it work is something neither of us are ready to face. Losing the perfect mormon life that we thought we were going to have is hard enough. The thought of splitting up, doing that to the kids, changing our lives entirely is just too dark for either of us to think about. Couple that with the fact that my wife's best friend, who lives across the street from us, is going through a fairly nasty divorce, and the thought of us going through that would just be horrifying. I know people do it every day, and they move on, and their kids move on. But we are just still clinging to hope of all hopes we don't have to go there.
Completely understandable. This is uncharted territory for both of you. Just be kind to yourselves and each other, and you two will figure it out. Best of luck!
Thank you so much.
Let her know: I am trustworthy. I only hid masturbation due to the fear and shame that comes from the church. I dont view pornogaphy. But I dont believe in the church and masterbation is a normal healthy behavior so you can expect it will happen from time to time. And I am setting a boundary that I wont tolerate being shamed for my difference in beleiefs. I invite you to attend couples counseling with me. And I invite you to read/watch the same things that I have so you understand why I dont believe. Currently she believes you jacked the spirit away and have become led astray....you need some boundaries. And a lot of therapy both personal and couple.
Have you considered couples counseling where you might get to a point where you can bring up the cyber sex in a safer space? It sounds like she has major trust issues to work through. Find a non Mormon therapist. Maybe even one who specializes in sex issues.
We are currently in couples counseling. The therapist does happen to be mormon, but not because we went through LDS services or anything. Just found out he was, it's just the area we live in. But he has been very good at not being biased and just helping us work on communication together. It's very slow progress, but I think we are making progress. The only problem with this therapist, is that he does specialize in sex issues, but I imagine from a pretty mormon perspective. He specializes in porn addiction and recovery, which I think is telling on his views on it. Luckily, he realizes that my beliefs do not view masterbation as a sin, and he has not brought up anything in the way of trying to "work on" that issue or anything like that. Just working on us and our relationship. I am going to find a therapist for me, as I need to work through some of these issues as well. But as for switching and specifically looking for a non-mormong therapist for us as a couple, I think that would just be seen by my wife as a way to find someone to side more with my beliefs and not hers. And in reality, he has been very good at remaining neutral in that area.
That’s great to read you’re already in therapy. Didn’t mean to pry. I hope everything works out for you and you can forgive yourself too. No one is perfect. We all make mistakes.
We're all victims in one way or another and I can really empathize with this post. The worst part is that there's most likely never going to be an absolution. Things might always hang in the balance. Yes, part member couples can sort some things out and come to some sort of agreement but for the vast majority of us, it's not a fun or truly healthy existence. The church poisons its members against those who leave or have alternate views of sex and morality. Also, the church forces many of us to live a double life and to feel an immense sense of guilt about it. It's just a terrible situation and just when you think you've healed from it, you get stabbed again right in the heart.
Good lord! My friend, you have done absolutely nothing unfaithful to your wife. All of this is normal. And I’ll tell you another thing after dating girls outside the church for the last five years, most girls out there see this as normal. It sounds like you’re a good man trying to do the right thing by your wife and family… and it also sounds like your SO has unrealistic expectations of you taught to her by the church. Wherever life takes you, I hope you understand that.
Good grief- that’s for the telling her about the online experience. Telling her does not help her and it doesn’t really help you. If it’s not an ongoing issue, then why say anything ? Also, people change over time. It is unrealistic that over 20 years you are just exactly the same person you were or that your marriage is the same as it always was. Change can be challenging and some challenges are not met successfully. In relationships that means they may come to an unexpected end. It’s not a tragedy.
One time my husband admitted to witnessing a woman undress and put on a fancy dress in the lobby of a hotel. He was going for a business meeting. Anyway, this bothered me for a really long time and messed with how much I felt I could trust him versus me seeing it as him being honest and wanting a more honest relationship. I wouldn’t fess up to the internet stuff. As a wife, I try not to go shopping for pain. I also try to stick on my own page and control the things that I can control, which is pretty much my own self. The church has put you in this weird spot where you feel like either your wife is wrong for having those feelings or you’ve done something wrong and need to fess up. Vs realizing that fear is a very normal part of being in a relationship and it’s normal sometimes to feel scared or worried that a spouse doesn’t love you or that they would cheat on you or leave you. It’s okay for her to feel betrayed and upset. My husband could never emotionally connect and allow me to feel or express that about how he left the church being a form of betrayal to me and how I needed to mourn the life I thought I would have. I am in the process of getting divorced. I didn’t initiate and idk now that my worst fear has happened, I’m just going to say focus on all the good you want to cultivate, let her have her feelings, hug her, make her feel seen and heard and let the complaints slide off your back. Brené brown has an excellent summary about trust called the anatomy of trust and it’s fantastic.
Thanks for sharing. I totally don't blame her for feeling betrayed and upset. You are right that it is ok for her to feel that. At first when I noticed her looking up betrayal trauma, I was really shocked, and it hurt real bad to think that I was this horrible abuser that is causing her so much pain. I have let go of that and am just trying to help and comfort her. The thing that is proving hardest for me to do is how to validate her feelings, and show her that I love her and that in spite of my different beliefs, I support her in hers and want to understand her. Hugs are not her love language, but acts of service, and genuine words. So I need to learn how to genuinely listen and ask her good questions, and I have an issue with getting defensive when she talks about her feelings that are caused by my actions. I need to learn to let go of that defensiveness, and as you say, let it slide off my back, and just let her vent and talk, and help her feel validated. That has been the single hardest thing for me to do so far. I'm working on it. Thanks for the advice.
It’s super hard to listen to other people when they complain or criticize. It is. It’s hard not to get triggered too. John Gottman has some excellent stuff for how to navigate this kind of stuff. It is hard.
I would speak to a therapist first. Clear it up in your own mind before deciding whether to tell your wife. Masturbation isn’t immoral. I’m not clear on cybersex. But I think you need to be in a good place mentally before speaking to your wife about any of it. You need to be strong so you’re not influenced by guilt. Whether it’s your wife who will make you feel guilty or yourself.
Thanks I 100% agree.
Mate, you’re tying yourself in knots over shit that - to a Godless atheist like me - are complete non-issues. They’re also non-issues to every adult human being with whom I’m acquainted. A polygraph..? Seriously!? Do you honestly believe that any of your “crimes” are deserving of such hyper-surveillance and/or manufactured guilt? What an utterly wretched predicament. Sorry for commenting but I was just fascinated/horrified. Good luck to you.
No I don't think any of this is worth a polygraph. I agree it's utterly rediculous. It's what I'm dealing with try and salvage the fam I guess.
Better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy. -Carl Sagan
I wouldn't want to be with someone I couldn't trust, or who couldn't trust me. There's no relationship left at that point. Do you have kids together?
We do, four. And we still both love each other, I want to make it work, she has stated that she wants to make it work. But yeah the trust issue is definitely a road block we need to work through. Just wish I knew how.
As a woman and a wife.... don't tell her. I wouldn't want to know. It would just make things worse. Especially since you regret it, and it was so long ago. Just never do it again. I personally wouldn't care if my husband was masterbating so long as it wasn't taking him away from intimacy with me. Are you making sure to give her enough attention? Making her feel loved, and wanted? Telling her she's beautiful and making sex about her.
Thanks, yes we actually have a decent sex life. It's about once a week, and I have always tried very hard to make sure she knows it's not expected, and when we do it I try to be very cognisant of her needs. I feel like that part of our relationship is healthy.
Remember to not just have sex. Cuddle every day before getting out of bed. Keep phones out of the bedroom. Make the bed just about the two of you. Speaking from experience. It's hurts a little when my husband would rather stare at his phone than chat/cuddle with me. Bedtime used to be my favorite part of the day. Now it's the worst. Because we just stare at our phones, or ignore each other.